


Not In Kansas Anymore

by Darmys



Series: Long Road Home [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Alternate Universe - The Highroad Trilogy, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Deaths, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2018, M/M, Not Involving Our Main Characters, Past Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester, Past Dean Winchester/Nick Munroe, Period-Typical Racism, Robot!Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 90,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darmys/pseuds/Darmys
Summary: Sareno Dean Winchester answers to no one. Born to a powerful House on the storm wracked mining planet Kansas, he and his brother Sam have grown up strong and independent. The only person that holds their respect is the enigmatic Bobby Smith, Master of the martial arts academy where they train.When alien bounty hunters kidnap Bobby, Dean throws away the life he knew and sets out—with Sam and Baby—to rescue his mentor, no matter how far they have to travel through known space.This is the first part of a massive space opera trilogy. Based on the original work of Alis A. Rasmussen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before I start thanking anyone, I want to take a moment to address a tag that I haven't included.  
> There is a fade to black sexual encounter in the story, which while 100% consensual between Dean and Cas, happens without Dean knowing that Cas is half-alien. I thought a lot about using the "Dubcon due to identity issues" tag, but chose instead to give this warning here instead. Please carefully consider this knowledge before you continue if this may cause you any distress.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I have so many people to thank for their help on this trilogy, I am obviously going to start with the Lady Fox whom I could not have done this without, who I wouldn't want to do this without. She is my rock, my sounding board and often my sanity.  
>   
> [Icarusinflight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusinflight/pseuds/icarusinflight), Baxxie24, [Wargurl83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wargurl83/pseuds/Wargurl83) and my hubby (bless him), For all your help with Baby and her music.  
> [ThatPeculiarOne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatpeculiarone/pseuds/thatpeculiarone), [Destimushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destimushi/pseuds/destimushi) and [Hartless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaHart/pseuds/NadiaHart), for all the hand holding and support.  
> [Kazshero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazshero/pseuds/kazshero) your alpha reading is unparalleled.
> 
> Lastly, [Unwashedace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwashedace) the very lovely artist who claimed this fic. Her art is embedded. You can also find her art post [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16315196)
> 
> * * *
> 
> * * *

Campbell House is vast. Kilometer after kilometer of tunnels, curving away into darkness with long forgotten passages ending in abandoned rooms. Buried far under the surface of the planet Kansas, under tons of rock and sheathed in metal utterly contained, the structures are as rigid as the rules and traditions binding the family living within it.

Frustration and anger drives Dean through corridors, Sam following at his heels. Lights in front of them brighten then fade away behind as sensors track their movements. They move continuously with no hesitation in their turns. Dean knows exactly where they’re going—to the warehouse with its lifts to the surface and freedom.

He stops at the lock, lights on the panel blinking red. Dean taps the warning symbol on the screen: Storm. How appropriate, he thinks, looking at the gauges with the blasé eye of a native Kansan. He grins up at his younger brother and codes in the opening sequence.

Stepping inside the warehouse, they cut hard right into an alcove where protective outerwear is stored. Thick jackets, gloves, goggles, hardhats and breathing plugs to keep out the dust. Dean double checks Sam is properly attired. He might be twenty-one, but it’s best practice to have someone else check your gear. It is the only reason he suffers Sam checking his.

Only a few of the warehouse’s lights cycle up when they enter, shadows hiding the far walls and forcing the men to use the hard hat lights to move between the mining equipment littering the floor. Dean leads the way through the newer machines, past the older broken down ones, pulled apart and waiting for repairs, towards a far corner. Here ancient machines from the earliest days sit, abandoned and forgotten. They are smaller, more sophisticated machines their grandfather can’t use or repair but won’t sell or scrap.

Reaching the back corner Dean whistles a short phrase. Two white lights blink on in the darkness and a reply sounds. A repetition of the single line in four voices. A shape moves toward him, hovering at his waist level. Black and shiny, a line of chrome running along both sides, two appendages dangle like stunted arms from her equator.

A robot, of course, but careful research by both Sam and Dean has netted the same poor results: An ancient line, workings unknown.

At age fifteen Dean had been so fed up with the teasing he suffered at the hands of their cousins, he had secretly come to the warehouse, furious and humiliated from his and Sam’s failed attempt to run away and he’d made one of the ancient machines work.

Not understanding its function, he’d gotten the antique machine running through sheer pigheadedness. It’d taken nearly a year before he and Sam could communicate with it. Even then it’d been at the most basic level and it had taken another five before Dean achieved fluency.

They discovered she could speak and understand Standard but preferred to use her own language. Standard, she informed Dean, was vastly primitive compared to the sophistication of her music.

During this time she’d logged into the University and had taken a ten hour test in fifty-two minutes, earning a perfect score in Dean’s name. Five months later, Dean took the entrance examination in person at Lawrence Port and received miserable scores—in comparison—and so ended that sensation.

In the past ten years they’d learned, along with her primary music based language, she seemed to be sentient. Since Dean saved her from decline and degeneration—the exact words she’d used were _Salt turns to rust, ashes from Eden, and bone into dust_ he’d gained her complete devotion and loyalty, along with her series name and number: Impala 1967.

It’s a joyous relationship, Dean thinks. The Impala has infinite patience for Dean’s limitations—he can only whistle or sing one voice at a time. She often reassures him he’s making excellent progress through the collected works. Rewarding Dean and, to a lesser extent, Sam with a variety of pieces from other series, bearing the equally strange names Corvette, Silverado and El Camino.

For her part (Dean has thought of the Impala as a ‘her’ since before she first sang to him, and calls her Baby), she loves to play on his computer. Dean hooks her up whenever he can get her to his and Sam’s suite unseen. For he has only told Sam about Baby, no-one else, not even Master Smith.

Baby sings a lilting question.

 _We go to the Academy,_ Dean whistles in response.

Amber lights flash twice from all four corners of the Impala as she sings. _Very well, and will you require my assistance or attendance?_ Her tempo increases showing her willingness.

_It’s storm weather. We need you here, just in case._

Sam holds out a pair of beacons for Baby to scan so she can track them if they don’t return. Dean motions for Sam to hand him one of the beacons so he can clip it to his belt. Sam does the same and Baby sinks back down behind a long abandoned drilling machine.

At the surface lock, Dean’s code flashes on the comm-panel. They both ignore it while Sam punches in the exit sequence.

The door groans as it opens, sand continually invading the tracks it glides on. All of the surface locks are constantly on the maintenance list. Dean himself cleaned this particular lock three days ago, but from the sound of it, it needs doing again. He reaches around Sam and adds it to the schedule.

Inside the lock, the brothers wait in companionable silence through the long rise to the surface. The outside lock opens and they step outside.

Wind whips around them as they lean against each other adjusting to its strength. After a moment Sam pats Dean on the arm letting him know he’s gained his legs and they can move out.

Kansas is both beautiful and deadly. Sharp spires of rock and ragged gulches litter its surface. The storms regularly scouring the planet reshape its brittle crust into fantastical formations.

Even now the brothers can hear the distant roar of an avalanche. The original colonists experienced catastrophic numbers of injuries and death, until they’d learned to live deep underground in the stable bedrock below. First by using the exhausted tunnels their mining pursuits created then later by purposefully excavating spaces to use as their homes, offices and work spaces.

All that is left on the surface now are access locks to the different Sar family holdings, the few independent dwellings like Bobby Smith’s and the ever present wind turbines powering everything. Lawrence Port sheltered in a gorge is the only true exception.

Bobby’s Academy resides in a small hollow of unbroken ground. From a distance all that can be seen is the wind turbines surrounding it. Sam and Dean slog across the flat, their heads ducked down to their chests as they push their way through the wall of wind pushing them back and away from the Academy’s lock.

Dean presses his hand to the panel beside the lock, it flashes green and the door slides open. The wind they’ve been fighting abruptly changes direction and pushes them in. Sand swirls across the floor in patterns moving too fast for the brain to understand, freezing when the door shuts.

The lift sinks slowly and the brothers remove their goggles and hardhats. When the inner door opens they quickly move into the anteroom, storing their outer protective clothing before changing into the obligatory loose white pants and belted tunic worn by all of Bobby’s students.

Barefoot, they walk down the corridor, Dean’s strides keeping time to the frantic melody he whistles, an out-of-series song Baby taught him. The door to the dojo is open with Bobby sitting cross legged on the mat reading, but as they enter he lays down his screen and turns to face them.

Bobby looks at Dean quizzically. “Finish it,” he orders.

For a moment Dean does nothing. Then, remembering what he’s been doing, he continues whistling the piece of music through to its end.

“Can you sing it?” Bobby asks.

Dean snorts, sitting down on the floor opposite Bobby with Sam taking position at his side. “I haven’t got the voice.”

“That piece is notoriously hard to sing. But you had the tune of it,” he smiles. Bobby looks much younger than his grandfather, but Dean is sure, without knowing why, that he is much older. “I haven’t heard it in years.”

“But how could you—” Dean stops and shoots a quick look to his brother. “How do you know it?”

Bobby blinks. “Well that begs the question of how you know it. I wasn’t aware any alt-rock music was taught in the local schools.” He studies the two brothers thoughtfully.

“I thought it was El Camino?”

“Ah. The El Camino series of Chevrolets exclusively used alternative rock for communication and after a time the names became interchangeable.” Bobby stands up and gestures for the brothers to do the same. “First kata please.” Bobby bows to them and steps back, allowing them room to move.

Sam and Dean look between themselves judging the distance they need. Sam takes a half step outward. At Bobby’s nod, they smoothly step their left foot forward, striking with their left fist, blocking as they turn to their right. They move through the fourteen combined positions of the first and second katas. Once complete, they return to their ready positions.

“Third kata.”

Third kata has nineteen movements which Bobby allows them to complete. He then orders Sam to continue but pulls Dean aside.

“You’re angry,” he states.

Dean moves away to the wall. “The Sar means to forbid me—us from coming here. He’s using—” Dean stops. He doesn’t want to talk about Christian or the bounty hunters. Bobby waits. His eyes don’t waiver from Sam but Dean can tell he’s waiting for him to continue. Dean, however, is caught up in the drama from earlier, which sent him and Sam escaping to Bobby.

  


Oo.oO

  


Sam and Dean had been quietly chatting, ignoring the goings on in the family dining hall, when their grandfather’s strident voice broke through their conversation. Sar Samuel Campbell required all family members, no matter how distantly related, to eat dinner together. Only those on shift or stationed in one of the outer holdings were exempt. As such the main meal of the day was often a cacophony of conversations as people spoke over each other.

“Furthermore,” continued the Sar, “if what Christian told me earlier is correct, I think you should reconsider letting Sam and Dean continue attending _that man’s_ academy.”

“What’d Christian say?” Sam asked. He and Dean were seated at one end of the high table, as direct descendants of current the Sar, even if as Winchesters they were not part of the succession line.

Christian had been clearly happy to take center stage. “I saw six bounty hunters with blazers and license tags on their wrists. Bobby took them all out. He was unarmed and he took them all out. Then he called Security and had them arrested for assault!”

“Christian.” The order to be silent had been clear in Samuel’s voice. “Bounty hunters. I always knew _that man_ was trouble. Well?” He regarded his daughter. “Are you going to continue to allow Sam and Dean to study there?”

Mary considered in silence, a silence that spread to the far corners of the room as everyone turned to hear the verdict. Dean did not move. Mary sighed. “This is something Sam, Dean and I need to discuss in private.”

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Christian muttered, not quite loud enough to extend beyond the high table. “Dean’s indulged to a ridiculous extent; he refuses to show any interest in mining.”

Dean remained silent, knowing anything he added would only make things worse.

“You know, Dean,” said Arlene, Christian’s wife, “the Greenville Campbells’ need a supervisor over in sector five-oh-two. It’s only a two month course to qualify.”

“I don’t care about rhodium ore,” Dean said. Sam kicked him under the table. Yup definitely worse.

“Molybdenum,” Arlene corrected automatically. “That vein’s molybdenum.”

Christian laughed softly, continuing to needle. “Well they’re not going to offer him the diplomatic opening.”

“You could’ve had an excellent bond alliance,” said the Sar.

“That’s true, Dean.”

“Yeah.”

Dean jerked his head up. “What—the one Moishe Campbell contracted with, that fat Jai Foxmore merchant, just because his uncle owns some fleet of cargo boats?” Sam had glared at him for taking the bait.

The Sar’s face remained impassive, but he flicked an impatient finger over the square of buttons on his chair’s arm. Strands of light shuddered to life on the wall behind him, tracing mineral veins, tunnels, current and future work, then died, fading back into the flat grey of the wall. “There’s other employment available to members of this House, Dean.”

“Should I be like Gwen? Try for a daring civil service posting out in the asteroid belts? But she had to have two children before she could even apply.”

“I’ll never understand why she agreed to be posted all the way out there,” said one cousin to another.

“Probably to get out of here,” retorted Dean. “Does anyone here have any idea of what I’d like to do? What I might be suited for?”

“What you’d _like_ to do?” the Sar interjected. “I fail to see how ten years of training with that man can be put to use. Except by enlisting in the government troops, which you also refused to consider even when the Immortals came recruiting—” he stopped, like this ground had been covered once too often.

Dean, less than five years from his majority at thirty, had shown no inclination toward any profession, apprenticeship, bond alliance, or the University. Had in fact shown no interest at all in anything except protecting his brother and Master Smith’s Academy.

“It’s time you realize you have to contribute to this House like the rest of the family,” the Sar continued. “I have a mind to start by forbidding you to enter Bobby’s Academy again!”

“No!” With a crack like a sharp exhalation, the glass in Dean’s hand shattered. “Never.” He stood, “I beg leave to be excused from the table, Mother.”

Mary raised a hand. “You can go, I’ll speak with you later.” Dean nodded and walked to the door in silence.

At the door he turned back. “Master Smith isn’t a criminal, Christian, no matter what you and your friends in that claustrophobic town say.” But even as Sam slipped through the closing door he heard voices encouraging Christian to elaborate on his story. And behind that, the Sar discussing the sixth vein workings with Arlene.

  


.oOo.

  


“I can’t blame him,” Dean sighs. “No-one’s ever accused me—us of being lazy, not with the hours we study here, but it’s true I don’t know what I can use all this training for. And it’s true Mother’s indulged us. It isn’t like I’ve tried to involve myself in House business like the rest of the clan. But I just don’t care about new mines or next week’s trading schedule and tax percentages.” Dean let his palms support him on the wall. Behind him, Sam’s measured, quiet breathing as he changes stances, striking invisible opponents and defending against imagined attacks, fills the room. “I should. But I don’t.”

“And there’s the flaw in hereditary systems of class and government,” Bobby grumbles. Dean allows himself a reluctant smile. “That’s better,” Bobby continues, “although you’re still tense.”

“Maybe we should’ve joined the Immortals when they came recruiting,” Dean tells the wall, shaking his head. “But that’s swapping one set of restrictions for a worse set. I’ve almost gotten to the point where I’d apprentice in anything to get out of here.”

“But there’s no chance the Sar’ll let me go before I’m thirty. Not now, not without a bond, or a sponsorship. Without either of those, I’m stuck here.” He pauses, thinking over what he said. “And I won’t bond. Or leave without Sammy.”

“Sammy was a chubby twelve year old,” Sam complains while holding a pose in the sixth kata. “And damn straight you’re not leaving without me. We have a deal.”

If only Sam knew. Dean has been looking out for his younger brother ever since he was four years old.

  


Oo.oO

  


Their mother, much to the Sar’s ire, had bonded to John Winchester, an independent mechanic. The Sar had wanted her to bond with a distant cousin who carried the Campbell name. Only a Campbell could inherit Campbell House.

But Mary had met and bonded with John. Then when Sam was just six months old there’d been an accident at Corbett House and John had been hired to go and repair their main drill. There had been a storm raging over Campbell House that day, so John hadn’t been able to leave until late at night.

Sam had already been put to bed, as had Dean, but when their father came into their room to kiss them goodbye, Dean woke up. John sat on his oldest son’s bed and asked him to ‘watch out for Sammy.’ And being four years old, Dean held his hand out and said ‘Deal.’ John very solemnly shook Dean’s hand and agreed they had a deal.

He pulled Dean into a tight hug and told him to go back to sleep. It was the last time Dean ever saw his father. The storm they’d thought passed turned back on John while he was traveling overland and killed him.

But Dean had taken ‘Watch out for Sammy’ to heart and spent his whole life making sure his younger brother was looked after. So when Dean had found him, aged eleven, packing a rucksack and getting ready to run away from home and their awful cousins, Dean had tried to convince Sam to stay. When he couldn’t, Dean packed his own bag and they’d left together.

They’d made it as far as Beaconsfield Station where Sam bought Dean a necklace from a hawker using his comm-screen and they’d been caught by Security. On the trip back to Kansas and Campbell House they’d made their own deal. One would never leave without the other, they’d always go together.

  


.oOo.

  


The monotone swish of Sam’s gi as he commences the seventh kata fills the air. “Your mother,” Bobby comments almost to himself, “once told me, you’d received the highest score on your pre-exams ever recorded in this system. The University might have let you in without the child requirement.”

“Damn,” Dean cusses. “I’m sorry.” He turns. “It was a mistake. I didn’t really get that score.”

Bobby moves to the door leading to his study. “Come with me. Both of you.”

Sam comes to a rest, bows to the head of the room and joins them.

Bobby enters a code into the panel to open the door and a light winks on as it hisses aside. Neither Sam or Dean have ever been in Bobby’s private study before, as far as they know no student has.

The room feels foreign. It’s dominated by a huge desk made of an unknown material, grained and dark brown, and one of the walls is filled with shelves full of ancient books. Sam immediately walks to the closest, trailing his fingers through the air in front of them. Dean’s attention is caught by a picture protruding from another wall. Strange flat-bottomed vehicles with large white triangles above them sit directly on some sort of smooth surface resembling oil, if oil was blue. A curtain, its weave so coarse Dean can identify the colors of individual threads, screens an opening to another room.

“You know damn well,” Bobby grouches at them, “you’re my best pupils. Whatcha don’t know is you’re the best pupils I’ve ever had.” Bobby’s tone is grave, almost alarmingly so. “I should give you what opportunity I can before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Sam asks.

Bobby pulls open a drawer in the desk and shuffles things around before lifting out a tangle of light chains. “I know somewhere you can both go, but it depends how far you’re willing to travel.”

“Since I can remember I’ve wanted to get as far from here as I can,” Sam speaks. He does a much better job of blending in with their crowd of cousins, not drawing attention to himself. But, like Dean, he has no interest in mining.

Dean nods his agreement when Bobby turns to gauge where he stands. “As far as we can.”

“‘As far as you can’ may be further than you think.” Bobby pauses. “Is Central far enough?”

“Central!”

He scowls. “I know a woman there. She’s my—ah—sister. She teaches. Her Academy on Central will be much larger than mine. Give her this an’ she’ll apprentice you.” Bobby hands them each a necklace, a burnished five-pointed star encircled by a ring of flames.

In this room with its strange furnishings and the odd symbol Dean now holds in his hand, he’s reminded no-one knows where Bobby Smith came from.

He’d arrived fifteen years ago and opened his Academy. There have been a couple of incidents since then. A woman who appeared fearful and scared and left half a year later in good spirits. A heavily-robed stranger who came in during a lesson and was quickly ushered into Bobby’s study, but was never seen to leave. Dean wonders briefly if the stranger is still hiding out in Bobby’s rooms or if the older man somehow managed to smuggle them off-world. Regardless, memories fade when times remain quiet and Bobby lives very modestly.

Until Christian’s bounty hunters. Is that what Bobby means by ‘too late’, Dean wonders. What if Christian’s right?

Dean slips the necklace on, hanging like a cool circle of hope under his shirt. He looks at Sam and nods. “What do we have to do?” Sam asks.

“Trust me,” Bobby answers. “She’ll refuse to take you, at first, but she’ll take you. You just need to persist. Her name’s Pamela Barnes.” He nods toward the door and they leave the study. “Ask the Saress if she’ll agree to let you go to Central.”

“And if she won’t?”

“Ask her first.”

“We should go, Dean.” Sam’s eagerness makes Dean smile. For an instant they stand at attention and bow to Bobby.

In the anteroom they change as quickly as they can, only pausing to fold their uniforms neatly before placing them in their lockers. The lift ascends slowly. But the brothers grin at each other—Central! Administrative center for the far flung systems of Riven space—navigable space. Center of everything.

The storm is in full force when they exit the lock. It’s not the monster that killed their father, far from it, but it’s enough to make crossing the twenty meters of flat hollow hazardous. The brothers cling together for the first third of the way up the slope. There they pause in the lee of a cliff of striated rock, excited Bobby’s found something for them. Dean grins at his brother. He should’ve known Bobby would pull through for them. He’s never failed them in the past.

A flash of dull blue light off to Dean’s right grabs his attention. He taps Sam and points towards it. A ship lit fore and aft emerges from a frenzy of low lying clouds. The storm must be ripping at it. It should be being tossed around, yet the vessel moves along meters above the ground like the air is still.

An aircar. No-one has aircars. Of course they are possible, but here on Kansas they’re unheard of.

The aircar comes to a complete stop, hovering effortlessly above the entrance to the Academy. It sinks until it hangs scarcely half a meter off the windswept flat. An opening appears in its side and three forms emerge, stepping down, the wind whipping their cloaks around their thin bodies. Dean instinctively knows they are aliens and he takes Sam grabbing at his arm as confirmation his brother has come to the same conclusion.

The aliens move swiftly to the lock and disappear into the shaft. A fourth emerges, stumbling slightly as it touches the ground. It turns and the wind whips back its cloak and hood.

So close to human, but excruciatingly thin; delicate, Dean might call it, but it remains unbowed in the strength of the wind.

For long moments, the solitary figure remains motionless below. The lift opens. Four figures emerge, one limp, carried between two of the aliens. Bobby!

Completely in their power, unconscious—not dead, or they wouldn’t be holding him so carefully, like he’s as helpless as an infant. The fourth alien clambers up into the ship.

Dean breaks out of his shock, throwing himself forward, sliding and scrambling down the slope. But the aliens are faster; oblivious to his presence, they load Bobby into their ship. Before Dean reaches the plateau, the last one pulls itself up and the hatch shuts.

Dean stares, as helpless as Bobby, as the alien ship rises hard into the wind, turning and flying away in the direction of Lawrence Port.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Bones to Dust** by _Fred Haring_.


	2. Chapter 2

Clouds boil upward, violet in color near the ground, changing in dizzying shifts up the spectrum until they appear red. Dean feels powerless in the face of this whirlwind of violence, both the storm frenzy ripping the clouds apart and the aliens who’ve taken Bobby. Without whom, there’ll be no classes, no long discussions about interpretation and tactics, no Academy. The entire focus of his and Sam’s last ten years, gone. They have to find him.

Dean pulls himself along the ledge, Sam following directly behind. A flash of white startles them both. The thin, interwoven lace of white filaments of Kansas’ native life sweeps past the two of them, as intangible as the ghost it’s named for. Dream, the settlers called it. Boo, the spirit, the ghost of loved ones lost in storm—like Bobby.

Sam slips, staring, and Dean throws out his hand to catch him. Jagged rock cuts into Dean’s other hand as he pulls Sam back up onto the ledge. For a moment he forgets even Bobby as he checks to make sure Sam is safe. Three meters from them an updraft ensnares the ghost and it disappears in an eddy of violet cloud.

The rock under them starts to slip and Dean pushes Sam forward as the shale at their feet spills down, avalanching, drowning the wind in its roar. Dean presses Sam into the rock face and hooks his arms under his younger brother’s. Dean holds tight as his footing erodes out under him. He clutches higher on the outcropping, using his body to wedge Sam more securely against the cliff face. Gradually the spill slows, stops, and only the echo remains. Dean shudders as he pushes Sam ahead of him, picking their way up to the top of the defile, only stopping once they reach the final stretch of ground before Campbell House.

At the lock, Sam uses every high risk clearance code he knows in order to cut through the security shutdown on the lift. Dean’s glove, ripped from his wrist to the base of his fingers, dangles open revealing a cut on his hand. Slow drops of red form and fall, shattering into invisible fragments as the wind catches them. The hum of the lift rising to the surface is an ominous undertone to the clatter of the furiously spinning wind generators. The light on the panel blinks and a wailing siren sounds. Dean tucks his bleeding hand under the opposite arm. The door yawns open.

“Dean!” Sam’s voice is too loud in the eerie silence that follows the door closing and the storm noise cutting off.

Dean ignores him as he calls up the ‘status’ codes. “We need to take the tunnel into Lawrence Port, right now.”

The screen tells them both there is a breakdown in the second vein. As they watch the list, a broken wind turbine over third vein and an engine fire in fifth supersede it one after the other in priority.

Dean slams his uninjured hand against the wall. They’ll never gain access to the tunnel cars with the growing list of emergencies. “We can’t divert maintenance from this.”

“There’s nothing bad enough that a two hour delay would make a difference,” Sam mumbles as he checks the rest of the list.

“I’ll go see Mom but we need to be realistic, we’re not getting a tunnel car.”

The lift doors open to reveal the warehouse. The whine of a drill pierces the rumble of a grinder and an engine sputters to life, revs wildly unable to idle and is turned off with a shout of disgust.

“Pack for both of us and meet me at Baby.” Dean runs to the storage alcove and strips off his outer gear. He looks at himself in a mirror and, swearing, stalks into the cleaning cubicle, throwing his clothing in the sonic cleaner and himself in the sonic shower. He allows for only the briefest of cycles before bandaging the cut on his hand and heading out in search of his mother.

The metal walls of Campbell House slide off into darkness. They’re so alike that any corridor can be mistaken for another. The only reason people don’t get lost is because the entire House is laid out on a precise grid.

The labs and workshops each have their own quadrants, kitchen and private rooms in a third. The last holds the warehouse, garage and assorted storage rooms. In the center of the grid are the offices, grouped around a circular chamber—the communications center.

Field supervisors speak in whisper quiet tones in the still air: “Ten-eighty-eight. Let me have a spiker on five-eight.” “Ten four. I’ll send it with Zeke.” One of his cousins sits at the comm-desk, playing ‘Galaga’ on a computer and periodically responding with a terse “Eight-twelve, you’re coded in” to a request. Static and random feedback squeaks punctuate the low exchanges, and now and then a high beep sounds from the game.

“Dean!” Sar Samuel’s voice penetrates forcefully into the quiet of the foyer. “Come in here.”

Dean walks to the entrance of his grandfather’s office.

“Come in, boy. You needn’t pretend to avoid me.” The Sar rises from his chair, pausing to erase a screen from his computer. Dean stays in the doorway. “You continually disobey me,” the Sar continues. “I have offered you any number of options for your future, but you refuse to listen to me. The time has come that you simply no longer have a choice—”

“This is an emergency,” Dean steps back.

“You will wait, young man, until given my leave.” The Sar sweeps a hand over his face. “Emergency! I tell you, my boy, when the next offer—”

“Bobby was kidnapped!” Dean spits and stalks to his mother’s door.

Arlene steps out from the communications room, shrugs and walks into the Sar’s office.

Mary’s door is open, so Dean dodges inside and palms the control panel sighing as the door closes behind him. Here the still dry air smells like some unidentifiable spice.

“Excuse me, Mother.”

Her blonde hair hangs loose, brushing the desk where she remains bent over a graph. “If you must argue with your grandfather, at least do it in private, not where the entire field division can overhear you.” She turns in her chair to face Dean. “I’m know,” she continues, “we haven’t found you something that suits your talents and I don’t want to force you into a bond you’d despise, but eventually you may leave me no choice. You must have some occupation, Dean.” A frown creases her face. “I feel embarrassed to add that you haven’t even provided children for our House.”

The familiar litany fades pass him. “You don’t understand.” Dean moves to her chair and sinks down to his knees. “I just came from the Academy. Someone—they weren’t even human—someone abducted Master Smith.”

“An alien abduction? Dean, that’s ridiculous and in this weather? What were you even doing out—”

“They had an aircar. I saw it.”

Blue eyes met green. “By the Void, did they now?” She stands up and paces her office. “An aircar?” She pauses, considering Dean. He in turn gets to his feet, watching his mother’s face.

“Dean,” Mary breaks the silence finally. “Only Central has clearance to grant bounties, to allow intersystem arrests. Only Central would have access to aircars. I’m afraid Christian must’ve been correct,” she sighs. “If you like, we’ll send out a query, follow the usual channels. I’m sure we can get word of him.”

He notices his mother looking at his bandaged hand and thrusts it behind his back. “It’s nothing to do with Central. I know it.”

“Even if it were nothing to do with Central, which I doubt, what possible responsibility do you have toward Bobby?”

“Because—” He falters, thinking about Bobby unconscious in an alien’s grasp, before continuing. “Because he’s family.”

For an instant he sees a flash of emotion cross her face, like an old pain returning to haunt her. “Of all the children of this House,” she speaks slowly, “you have been the most disobedient, Dean. In that way, you’ve always reminded me of myself at your age. But I didn’t have the luxury to seek some spiritual calling. I’ve had to help my father rebuild the Campbell mining operation and whatever inclination I might’ve had to an artistic vocation, or to an elite military group like the Immortals…” With a slight grimace she shrugs as if relieving herself of old dreams long since withered. “My responsibility was and continues to be, first of all to Campbell House.”

Another time Dean might have been surprised at this revelation, or perhaps flattered his stern and single-minded mother showed this side of herself to him. But now he only shakes his head. “Then you see why I have to go after Master Smith.”

“No, I don’t see. Your obligations are here, Dean.”

He bows his head, but he doesn’t reply.

“Dean.” She looks at him, her eyes filling with sorrow. “I forbid you to go. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he replies.

He walks to his room. Looking at the undecorated walls, tan bed cover and uncluttered plastic desk he realizes the room reveals nothing of his character. He’s left no mark here. Without any regrets he leaves.

It’s easy to get them all through the warehouse and into the garage. Dean, Sam and Baby have played this game before, on furtive trips to their suite and Dean’s room where Baby’s idiot relative—the computer terminal—resides. Obviously there are terminals all over the House, but Dean and Sam only allow the Impala access in Dean’s room.

Baby dims all of her running lights and dulls her sensors to a near opaque finish nothing like the mirror brightness that can reflect even the lowest light. Dust puffs out along her route and Dean walks beside her with his jacket and duffel hanging from one hand to screen her. Sam follows, shielding her rear.

The garage is deserted. Sam codes the lights in the room to remain off as the door opens and closes behind them. Dean hurries forward and switches on a single lamp sitting on top of the console that houses the computer. “Lock the door behind us, Sam.” He can hear Sam grumbling as he gets Baby setup at the computer terminal. “Lock all the entrances Baby. We don’t want to be disturbed.”

Shadows dominate the garage and the small light Dean has allowed can’t hope to reach the far limits of the stone hall. The garage is home to the little fleet of trucks and remodeled vehicles designed for surface work. Huge dents in their exteriors seem more tricks of the light than marks of Kansas’ brutality.

In the dimmest reaches lies the salvage of a flattened vehicle, no longer recognizable as a truck. Their older cousins had teased both Sam and Dean about it when they were young, telling them it still contained the body of their father, the metal crushed so tightly around him by combination of rock and wind on Kansas’ surface that he could not be recovered. The first time they did it, Dean pulled Sam away and they’d checked the inventory. The wreck had been there for more than seventy years.

Dean walks to the closest truck, checks and fuels it, while Sam stows their gear in the well-armored driving compartment. The roar of the engine echoes through the hangar, drowning out Baby’s melodic lines. Dean eases it forward, coming to rest with only a slight sputtering a meter from the lift doors and swings down from the seat.

At the computer, Baby plays chess on half the screen while the other half monitors the lift and hangar doors. As Dean passes behind her, she checkmates the computer. With a few sheepish chords she exits the program and sits ready for his command.

 _We go_ , he whistles. Baby codes an elaborate sequence, then detaches herself from the computer, following after Dean as he jogs back towards the truck. Three bell-like tones chime above the swell of the engine and the lift doors slowly rumble open.

The intercom snaps on, “Contact. Contact. Please identify. No clearance has been given.”

Sam slides across the bench seat and puts the truck into gear. It lurches forward into the lift, sand gritting under the tires. Dean and Baby keep pace with the truck as it enters the lift.

“Please identify. We have storm warning. Close the lift doors.”

The comm-panel on the wall of the lift comes to life before Baby reaches it, flashing warnings and prohibitions. Behind her the doors are shutting, but beyond them Dean sees the hangar door panel blink green and the garage door open.

“Come on,” he mutters under his breath. The lift doors come together with a metallic thud. One of the warning lights on the panel immediately turns off, but another takes its place. Someone behind is keying in the ‘open door’ sequence for the lift.

Baby attaches herself to the comm-panel. Then several things happen at once. Someone pounds on the lift doors. A flurry of messages light up the panel’s screen in yellow, amber and red. The intercom crackles to life and a high voice shouts, “What, in the Void do you think you’re doing?”

Most importantly, as far as Dean is concerned, the lift climbs. Slow and shuddering at first, but smoothing into the long rise toward the surface.

“Who is this?” shouts the voice over the intercom. An alarm high pitched and strident wails piercing in the enclosed lift. It shuts off abruptly.

“Dean,” his mother’s voice sounds calm over the intercom. “Stop this at once.”

Sam shuffles over to give Dean room to jump into the driver’s position before shoving their duffel bags a little deeper under the instrument board and adjusting the passenger safety belt so it is ready to fit over and around Baby.

“Answer me.” For the first time in his life, Dean knows his mother is angry. “Very well. We’ll go into the central computer.” The intercom clicks off. The lift shudders once and stops.

“Baby,” Dean shouts from beside the cab’s door. The lift starts to descend. “Override it! Override!” His hands clench into fists. Baby pushes forward a second appendage and plugs it into the panel. There is a furious riot of color on the screen. The intercom sputters with voices and fails. The lift shudders. Baby isn’t singing at all.

A violent jolt throws Dean into the side of the truck, winding him. The lift stops. The alarm shrieks. Yelling over the intercom abruptly cuts off. The lift reverses its direction again. The comm-screen goes black except for a single column of white rising like the level of water in a slim tube. The alarm ceases, like it’s been cut off. The white column rises until it hits the top of the display and the lift is at the surface.

Air rushes past his face as the door creeps open. Baby detaches herself from the comm-panel and speeds to him. He feels the air pressure thicken around him, as if the doors and walls are bracing. Baby slides onto the seat beside Sam and he belts her in, yelling at Dean to shut the metal cage around them and to get in the damn truck himself.

The wind screams in at them through the open door, blinding Dean with its force. Using both hands he pulls himself around and into the driver’s seat, pulling the door closed behind him. Sam hands him the second pair of safety goggles. The front of the truck may have a thick plexiglass screen, but the sides of the cab are an open cage.

Surface trucks aren’t designed to be driven during storms. Dean can see scarcely ten meters in front of the vehicle. But he merely tightens his grip on the wheel and eases the truck forward. As they come out completely from the lock, into the full fury of the storm, a hard gust picks the left side of the vehicle fully a meter off the ground, then lets it free to come crashing down. Dean’s head strikes the metal mesh above him as he is thrown upward, but the hardhat Sam slapped on his head absorbs most of the shock.

Baby, held hard in place by the cross strapping of belts, sings somewhat shakily.

_”Get your motor runnin'_  
_Head out on the highway_  
_Lookin' for adventure_  
_And whatever comes our way_  
_Yeah Darlin' go make it happen_  
_Take the world in a love embrace_  
_Fire all of your guns at once_  
_And explode into space”_

Dean hangs grimly on to the wheel and eases their way forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Born To Be Wild** by _Steppenwolf_.


	3. Chapter 3

The hard hat saves Dean. He’s sure of it, as his head and the metal ceiling of the cage meet more times than he can count, until his back and neck ache. Sam lays stretched out over Baby, using his own body to protect her.

Baby sings obscure ballads with strange and inexplicable lyrics for almost half the trip. But, coming around a nondescript corner of rock, a sudden blast of wind picks the front end of the truck up until they’re vertical, then slams it down so hard that the engine dies and Baby’s singing ceases. A lower, ominous tone rumbles down from above: avalanche.

“Dean!”

“I know! I’m working on it.”

Dean fights the engine. It coughs and starts only to die again as a massive fall of rock thunders down directly on top of them. A huge boulder hits square on top of the cage, shattering into shards of sharp stone that shower down through the mesh, scoring a tear through the right sleeve of Dean’s coat and a long, ugly line through the back of Sam’s jacket.

Dean swears, pumps the gas twice and stabs at the starter. Somehow he jolts the engine into starting and the truck lurches forward over the sliding unstable debris. When Baby commences singing again this one beginning _‘A mighty fortress is my truck,’_ Dean tells her to shut up.

She remains silent, except for the occasional dissonant chord surprised from her by some close encounter with imminent destruction, until Dean brings the battered vehicle to a stop in the wind shadow of Lawrence Rock, the huge, stable monolith of rock that demarcates the western edge of Lawrence Port. Here she ventures a brief thanksgiving chorus, very softly.

Dean has to uncurl each finger separately to remove his hands from the steering wheel. Massaging each hand in turn, he turns to check on Sam. He had asked Sam how badly wounded he was at the time, but now they are safe from the storm he needs to check to see for himself. Sam peels himself off of Baby and sits upright for the first time on their wild ride.

The buckles of the safety belts around Sam and Dean have become clogged with dust and debris, taking several moments to unfasten. Dean clambers out of the truck and Sam follows, leaving Baby where she is.

Gravel shakes loose from both of them as Dean checks the wound. The jacket has taken the brunt of it, sliced clear through the padding and even the lining. Dean can pass his hand through the hole. Luckily that’s the worst of it. Sam’s layers of shirts haven’t been cut and as Sam had predicted he’ll likely have some bruising, but he hasn’t been cut. Dean’s wrist isn’t as lucky and Sam pulls out the small first aid kit he’d packed, cleaning and wrapping the small cut.

While Sam repacks his duffle and pulls Dean’s out from where he’d jammed it in tight. Dean moves around to open the cage for Baby. Once Dean is able to remove her restraints and she can exit the vehicle, she lists slightly to one side.

“Damn,” Dean curses. Baby, her shine dulled by dust, is still rolling slightly to one side as she rises two meters. All her lights come on blinking in a successive patterns and she sings an unfamiliar phrase, righting herself.

Sam stands gazing down at the scattered lights below. Lawrence Port lies in a gorge. Broad enough that competent pilots can land between the high walls, the gorge shelters the town from the worst of the winds. A foundation of stable rock prevents avalanches, allowing much of the port to be built above ground. Better to serve the ships, which come in great numbers to carry away the products of the three House mines of the region: Chan, Corbett and, of course, Campbell.

Warning lights blink red and blue in set patterns across the landing fields to the south of the town. In the town itself, the streetlights glow softly yellow. The ever-present wind turbines glow, the leading edge of their large blades lit with pure white lights. Here and there orange lights mark maintenance and ventilation shafts.

They stand in a shallow cave. On three sides the rock looms over them, on the fourth the wind whips past. Dean stamps his feet and a faint shower of dust drifts from him to the ground. They take some time to slap at each other, dislodging as much dust and rubble as they can without removing any more layers of clothing other than Sam’s jacket.

He grimaces as he puts it back on, he hasn’t packed a spare. Dean checks the cargo area and finds a roll of reflective tape the maintenance teams use for patch repairs and does his own quick and dirty fix.

Dean, watching Sam stretch and twist, whistles, _Let’s go_.

They hike against a rising wind to the nearest lift shaft. Inside it’s blissfully silent, ignoring the low hum of machinery. Sam and Dean lean back against the cold smoothness of the metal walls. Baby hovers a hands breadth above the floor like she’s examining herself in its reflective sheen and isn’t entirely happy with what she sees. A sound like an indrawn sigh signals their halt and the doors open into an underground tunnel.

“Let’s go,” he repeats, picking up his duffel bag.

“What a ride. Let’s not do that in a storm again,” Sam comments.

Baby’s reply is very brief.

Stairs lead to Mineral Avenue. From there it’s a short number of turns down various streets passing a number of boutiques lit with gaudy colors. Beside Dean, Baby hugs the ground like an oversized maintenance drone, but the dusk protects them from stares.

At Ore Street they turn right toward the Harbormaster’s offices. It’s closed but not locked.

“Please let him be on duty,” Dean whispers as he opens the door, stepping into the outer office. Being closed for the day the room is barely lit, just the glow of two auxiliary lamps light the plastic desks, dark terminals and the long ‘permits counter’. A waist-high gate bars a short corridor with three doorways, all of them closed. Dean hops over it, Baby floating after him. At the central door, Dean knocks once and then a second time.

A voice calls out. “Who is it?”

“Benny, let me in.”

The door slides open. “How you going, chief?” Benny greets Dean as he and Baby enter the room, leaving Sam to wait in the outer office. The door huffs shut behind them. “What by the void is that?” Benny asks.

Dean pauses while his eyes adjust. The room is dark except for the ten screens on the curved console. Benny stands, hands moving on the console, the room’s lights all flick on. Dean shades his eyes with one palm while he blinks a couple of times.

Benny stares with eyes full of astonishment between Dean and Baby, obviously waiting for an explanation.

“Never mind,” Dean tells him firmly then, seeing Benny’s face, Dean softens, “It’s a long story and I need your help.” He walks to the console to stand beside Benny, examining each screen in turn.

“How’d you get here? There’s no Campbell cargo runs due for eight days.”

Dean leans forward to peer intently at the screen marked ‘Departures.’ “I drove.”

Benny laughs. “No.”

“I need a list of all ships that have left or have received clearance to leave in the past ten hours.”

Benny stands up. “You did. Brother, you could’ve killed yourself! You may not care, but some of us still cherish ideas about you.”

“Benny,” Dean interrupts, “not now. I need those listings.”

Benny looks again to the door, where Baby hovers patiently, lights blinking. She’s using an appendage to polish her surface. “Merde.” His eyes, deep set and ice blue, shift back to Dean. “Don’t tell me I can’t care,” he tells him, “not after everything we’ve been through,” but he reaches past Dean to bring up a series of numbers on one of the screens. “Station window is not at optimum. There’s a code two storm. You’re not going to get any lifts for the next two days.”

“Come on Benny, check for me.”

“Okay, okay. Move back.” Dean does so, trailing a mist of dust. “You’re as filthy as a tattoo. Maybe you should go take a shower while I check.” He brushes dirt off one of Dean’s sleeves, letting his hand settle there.

Dean pulls away from him and sets down his bag. “I’ll wait.”

Benny makes a face at him, but starts typing. A few screens scroll passed, two tones sound and new numbers flash on the screen. “By the Void. Unauthorized lift at dock seven, thirty-two minutes ago. That hasn’t happened for years.”

“Good watch you keep.” Dean moves forward to inspect the figures on the screen.

“Don’t be a push, Cher,” he bites angrily. “Why monitor? When no-one lifts without going through us?”

“Don’t call me that. What about bootleggers?”

“Much you know ‘bout booters,” he retorts. “What’d ’ya wanna know ‘bout this ship?”

“Classification?”

Benny checks, coming up only with ‘no match.’ The ship has no name or home port listed, just an ID number and gives only a Station clearance and a captain’s name, Cha. “Never seen ‘em before,” Benny tells Dean, “never heard of ‘em. I wasn’t on shift when they landed and Mama didn’t say nothing to me. Berth tax is paid up.” He shrugs.

Dean whistles and Baby moves forward, singing a brief answer.

“What?” Benny turns. “Hey!”

“Benny, move aside,” Dean asks. “This is Baby.”

Benny merely stares mouth slightly open at the approach of the robot. Baby settles in beside him and plugs into the console.

“Hey!” cries Benny again.

Dean puts out a hand and pushes him back into his chair. “It’s safe.”

A few more figures flash on the screen, wink off and Baby sings. Benny pulls his cap off and runs one hand through his hair. When Baby finishes and the screen reverts to what Benny had originally brought up, the harbormaster turns his eyes up to look at Dean, his hand still in his hair.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dean mutters.

Baby sings a short phrase.

“I’ll say.” Benny lowers his hand. “Dean! What is that thing?”

“She’s a very smart, very old robot,” Dean answers, “and she just told me that ship is, and I quote, ‘a Kapellan class oh-one-oh-oh-one-oh schooner, late Imperial ID vested class with special powers clearance,’ and ‘Cha’ is not a name but a title. Does that make any sense to you?”

“None of this makes any sense to me.”

“Fuck.” Dean walks to the door and back. “That’s got to be it.” He turns abruptly on Benny, who slowly lowers his hand to the console. “When’s the soonest jump window out of system from Station?”

“Absolutely none for six standard days,” he answers right away.

“Then I’ve still got a chance.”

“Although…” He replaces his cap before tapping out a command and watching the reply flash onto a screen. “They could be hanging out at Tagalong. They’ve got a window in two and a half standard days.”

“No-one’s got that much energy to waste.” He stops, remembering the aircar. “Maybe they do.” He whirls away again pacing.

“Likely chance Cher.”

Dean spins back, reaches to grab Benny’s shirt, pulling him to his feet. “If you call me that again I’ll smash your face in.”

Benny grins in his lazy half sensual way. “You have such a way with words, little Sareno. I remember the first time you propositioned me.”

“Benjamin Lafitte!” Dean pushes Benny away.

He throws up his hands, palms up. “You win. What a horrible name. I’ll never forgive Mama for giving it to me.”

“My first proposition,” Dean reminds him with a smug grin, “was to climb Lawrence Rock.”

“Then it musta been the second one.” He grins that quirky grin of his.

“Benny,” Dean sighs. “Master Smith was kidnapped this afternoon.”

Benny leans against the console, close enough that their shoulders brush. “I heard he had some trouble in town. Heard it was bounties.”

“No.” Dean draws back from him and describes what he and Sam had witnessed.

“What can I do?” Benny offers. “After all, I used to take classes with him too.”

Dean moves to sit in one of the chairs and Benny sits back down beside him. “No-one’s lifting off in the next day?”

There’s a slight pause. Benny clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck then drums his fingers on the console. Baby’s muted music swells infinitesimally in volume, a melancholy voice singing about being trapped in a chain gang.

“Benny?”

“Not officially.”

“Benny.”

“This office is not allowed to—”

Dean throws himself at Benny, landing mostly in his lap, his hands on either side of his face. “Benny!”

“You are filthy.” Benny puts his arms around Dean and settles him firmly into his embrace. “Now listen here, my unclean one, this is serious. Harbormaster’s a position appointed by Central and it’s a good one.”

“Then how do you know about unofficial lifts?”

He regards Dean thoughtfully, but seems to be thinking of something else. “I don’t mind the berth taxes,” Benny lists. “Or the old cargo taxes, which were based on a percentage of profits and so on and so forth. But it’s the new cargo taxes and the destination taxes, not to mention the clearances. They’re pushing the independents out of the good contracts. And the forced routes? And now Central is assigning what cargoes people can carry? It’s just not fair.”

“So you help the booters.”

“Never so noble,” Benny grimaces. “Bootleggers go up in the non-optimum times. It’s more expensive for them, but they can’t be traced by Station or by Elly Port tracers. And for the same reason, we’re in no danger of being caught looking the other way, since at those times we’re their only monitor. But there’s never an authorized lift from Lawrence Port. Only unofficial ones. Even the booters go through us.”

“Do your parents know?”

He grins again, that engaging blend of indolence and sensuality. “Mama and Grand-mere Lafitte set the whole system up.”

Dean looks at him intently and Benny basks in the force of his appraisal. “I never took you for a revolutionary,” Dean finally states.

Benny tightens his embrace to pull Dean in closer. “Do you love me for it?” he asks softly.

“No.” Dean pushes away from him. “I won’t lie to you. There isn’t a person I’ve met here who—I don’t know. I feel like they’re all so…”

“So predictable,” Benny interrupts glumly. “I know. You’ve said it often enough. Even that hot tempered asteroid miner you left me for last year?”

Dean winces. “Don’t throw Nick in my face. You’re worth ten of him.”

“You didn’t think so then.”

He shrugs, embarrassed. “He had his good qualities. But even a short temper becomes predictable after a while.”

The admission brings a faint smile to Benny’s lips. “At least I’m not alone.”

“I do like you better for it, for what you’re doing, I mean.” Dean sighs and stands up.

“I’m going to regret this,” Benny mutters, turning to the console. “Go shower, you and Sam both, plus your clothes. I’ll see if the booter who’s going up in fifteen hours will take you. But only to Station mind.”

“Thanks Benny, you’re a doll.”

  


.oOo.

  


Almost half a day later, the brothers and Benny stand, Baby at their feet, by a ramp leading onto an in-system shuttle run by a pair of elderly booters. Benny has found an old canvas jacket to replace Sam’s destroyed one.

“These two are safe. They won’t give you their names an’ it’s safer for all if’n you don’t give yours neither,” Benny tells them. “They’ll get you to Station, no problems. You won’t be idented or nothing. You shouldn’t have any problems finding Captain Cha.” Benny stands somewhat awkwardly until Sam rolls his eyes and heads up the ramp.

There’s a pause.

Dean smiles slightly. “I suppose you mean the problems will be cutting Master Smith loose. You sure you don’t wanna come?”

“Frankly, Dean, I doubt I’d be any use. Plus Elizabeth said she’d only cover for me for as long as it took to get y’all out here and back.” He shrugs, smiling with a trace of self-mockery.

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Dean tells him softly. “It’s your worst fault.”

One of the booters sticks his head out of the hatch and calls for Dean.

He puts out a hand to grasp Benny’s shoulder and pulls him close. Benny puts his arms around Dean and as they embrace, kisses Dean on his forehead.

“Is it really my worst fault?” he whispers into Dean’s ear.

“Oh, yes.” Dean pushes him away gently and picks up his duffel bag. Baby lifts, rocking in a gust of wind. “You do more things well than you think you do.”

Benny smiles a bit wanly. Dean steps onto the ramp. “When will you be back?” Benny asks quickly.

Dean pauses. “I don’t know.” He feels the medallion lying smooth against his skin under his shirt. “I don’t know,” he repeats gazing out at the high rock walls sheltering Lawrence Port, at the distant buildings of the town, the ships lying dormant in their berths and at Benny. “Maybe I’ll never be back,” he says too softly for Benny to hear and he takes an abrupt step toward him and hugs him fiercely. A second shout from the top of the ramp forces them apart and Dean hurries up the ramp, Baby beside him.

Inside, he turns to watch the ramp retract into the ship, the slow rising of the hatch. Beyond, Benny stands alone, a solitary figure buffeted by the wild air on the field, the distant howl of the wind turbines and the shriek of the wind. The hatch shuts with a solid thunk and he stands sealed in the silence of the shuttle.

One of the booters appeared. “This way,” he leads Dean and Baby to launch chairs behind the pilot seats. “We’re lucky to still be running, sure enough,” he chatters, checking Sam’s harness, then Dean’s. “The current laws are killing decent commerce. I know three small independents who’ve been forced to booting, not counting ourselves.

“Not ‘cause we wanted to, but it’s better’n the five others who lost their ships. Had to turn to Station hopping, or go to ground. All so the greedy elites in Central can run their own monopoly. They pretend to govern in the name of all of us, but they’re lining their own pockets.” He straps himself in and his more aloof partner begins lift off proceedings. “So we’re happy to do the Lafitte’s a favor, them having done so much for us independents, all things considered.” He ceases talking, fixing his attention on the launch.

The engines roar and they’re up, passing out of the gorge, where the storm hits them like a blow of a trained fighter. They’re thrown and wrenched until Dean worries for all of their safety. But the talkative brother makes a few jokes and they clear the storm, reaching the calm of high atmosphere.

“Nice ’bot,” observes the aloof booter, glancing back at Baby, whose lights have all gone off during the turmoil. Two small white lights blink on. Dean agrees.

“‘So appear the blessed children, prisoners and guardians of the Void,’” the talkative booter quotes. The screens covering the shuttle’s windshield roll back.

Sam gasps.

Stars. A million. Innumerable. Overwhelming. The sky is never anything but clouds on Kansas. Here it’s black and strewn with an eternity of brilliant points of light.

“Must be your first time up,” the talkative one notes.

Sam mutters something but Dean speaks more clearly. “Ten years ago we came up to Station, running away from home.”

“Didn’t get far,” remarks the aloof one.

“We got as far as Beaconsfield,” Sam speaks up. “But I never forgot this.”

  
  


  


  


Baby sings softly.

_”'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars”_

  


The radio stutters to life in a burst of static, a voice listing strings of numbers.

“That’s Station,” the talkative brother tells them. “We’ll be there faster’n you can say your periodic table.”

Sam and Dean nod their agreement, still staring out at the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A Sky Full of Stars** by _Coldplay_.


	4. Chapter 4

The radio traffic, they discover, has nothing to do with them except as a guide to avoid Security as they approach Station.

One of the three moons orbiting Kansas houses the interlocking spread of Station. A second smaller outpost called Tagalong is located in and services the systems asteroid belt.

Every cargo from the entire system passes through one or the other to be transferred to the Highroad merchantmen or the unmanned Lowroad freighters for haulage between systems. News and information, including personal communications and government edicts, are, for Security reasons or at prohibitively high prices, loaded into the occasional military cruiser and sent through windows at vectors only highly trained personnel on the best ships can risk. Allowing news to arrive at the next system before the fastest merchantman dares to risk.

On Station live folk who by biology or prejudice can’t exist on the world below. They survive on the fringes, in the old and should-have-been-abandoned areas left to rot. The poor and the unemployed, those desperate enough to eke out a life separated from vacuum by thinnest of patched walls. Security rarely ventures into such areas. Such excursions only drive the occupants to ground, to spring up elsewhere. This is where the booters dock, using their wits rather than the Portmaster’s controllers.

The elderly booters land quickly and, even with a pronounced jar of impact, competently. Dean offers to help offload their cargo; they refuse. They do ask for Baby’s help in clearing up a small matter—not illegal, they promise—on Station’s central database. In return the booters describe the fastest route to the Portmaster’s office and remind them that here on Station, days only last twenty-five hours not the thirty-two they’re used to on Kansas.

As they wait in the port lock, it occurs to Dean if their mother hadn’t sent them to Bobby’s Academy after their attempt at running away, they might’ve been back here long ago. Now here they are yet again standing side-by-side.

The lock coughs and jerks open onto a scene so unlike the brief glimpse of Station Dean remembers from ten years ago. But, of course, they’d come nowhere near this area then.

Every interlocking section of Station is comprised of a central corridor lined with shops, offices and docking facilities, with smaller offshoots leading to both warehouses and housing. Dean remembers a continual hum of machines along with humans, Cirriath and the occasional Sta moving from dock to shop to office. This section is nothing like that.

Stepping out into the corridor, Sam wrinkles his nose at the smell rotting food kept for too long. The stink of too many bodies kept too close to each other without access to proper sanitation.

Directly across from them, plastic two-by-fours board up the entrance to a shop. Its sign so faded they can’t tell what it was called, or sold. Next to it, a lean-to of scrap metal juts out into the corridor. Children, faces colored in wild patterns with tattoos, gawk at them.

A woman sits on the stained floor, singing loudly, her voice tuneless. Blue and orange checks pattern her hands and arms. A disfiguring burn covering her left eye, cheek and ear spoil the broader pattern on her face.

Two men and a woman, dressed in identical cheap synthetics, spit on the woman as they pass her and pause to eye Sam and Dean with curiosity. The tattooed children cower as the three walk past, continuing down the corridor. A tattooed shopkeeper, arms and legs a riot of purple swirls, bobs up and down in a frenzy of bowing as the trio stop next to him. One of the men speaks, something changes hands. They go on.

“Shit.” Dean turns to go in the same direction. “They could’ve warned us.” He steps carefully around a pile of filthy rags, weaving a path to avoid a man whose face is mottled with blue dots and a suppurating rash and makes his way down the corridor, Sam follows directly in his footsteps.

Litter lies strewn across the corridor. Children pick through it. Under a ripped and dirty awning, scrawny adolescents, dressed in clothing revealing the elaborate decoration of tattoos on their bodies, beckon luridly to Sam and Dean as they pass.

The lock to the next section is cycled closed. Dean shifts from foot to foot. Two dark passageways branch off on either side of the seal. He can’t see very far down them, but scurrying noises echo back to them. The lock blinks green; they step in and wait in the five meter square airlock as it shuts and re-pressurizes, a moment of lightness as the gravity field switches placement, before opening into the next section.

Like the other, this section curves away with shabby storefronts and docking entrances breaking the dull sheen of the walls. The untattooed trio they’d seen before stand ahead at the curve. They’ve surrounded a tattooed woman who seems to be begging. As they approach, Dean sees the woman give a handful of beads to one of the men. They pause to glance at Dean before they move on. The tattooed woman, weeping, runs into her shop.

Sam and Dean reach the next lock. A tattooed man in poor but neat clothing bows to them from the doorway to his shop. Near him, a clean child sweeps under the awning, carefully around the display of homewares. Sam smiles at the man and he smiles back, bobbing again, as the lock opens and the brothers enter.

Immediately on the lock opening they see a difference. The stores on this corridor are well lit and in good repair. Each establishment’s name is suffixed by the official section number, F1 and at least half these people are not tattooed. For the first time, they see the occasional black and grey uniform of Security personnel.

In section F2, signs saying ‘No tattoos allowed’ and ‘Ridani not spoken here’ start appearing on the doors of businesses. One front advertises a school, another a medical clinic.

At the next lock, a dozen people pass through with Sam and Dean. Five brightly dressed Cirriath, their two fingered, two clawed hands waving energetically in the air as they talk, hurry into a well-lit passage leading to one of the low gravity sections where they live. Two women sit talking at a street side café, a thin tattooed girl standing behind them holding their shopping and parcels. A cargo robot motors carefully down the corridor. With their neat clothing and clear skin, Sam and Dean rate scarcely a passing glance. The one tattooed woman, who walks alone up the street, not carrying anything, is stared at. Even the Cirriath, barely a meter tall, with their half-human, half-birdlike features, are considered commonplace.

In the next section four corridors intersect to create a public square. A free standing computer terminal sits in the center and after a few taps displays a map of Kansas Station. Dean scours and memorizes the berth arrangements, made easy as they are laid out numerically by sections. The first zones they have come through are labeled ‘abandoned’ and not listed as available for docking. A distinctive sign marks the Portmaster’s office.

Section A3, like the previous sections containing government offices they’ve traveled through, includes a disproportionately large number of black and grey Security uniforms amongst the population.

The Portmaster’s office sits on one side of a central plaza. A long line of people in all manner of dress stand waiting their turns at the permits counter, even more people sit patiently on benches, holding tickets and noisily watching the screen over the desks waiting to be called up for their turn. Along the other side wall, arrival and departure assignments scroll on huge screens.

Dean pulls his comm-screen from his pocket and finds an open access port. Next to him a long limbed Sta, dressed in colored silks complementing the rust sheen of her scalelike skin, curses in fluid undertones as unwanted information crosses her screen. Her clipped and tied mane shakes with suppressed emotion.

Dean queries for the berth and departure time of the ship that left with Bobby. The screen goes blank while the database searches. Dean mourns not having Baby with him as he knows she would get the information in a fraction of the time, however he knows it’s for the best she remains on the booters’ ship for now. Baby would garner too much attention.

Sam and Dean eye each other worriedly over the screen. For all they know, the ship could have gone directly to Tagalong, skipping Station entirely. But numbers roll up on the screen and the listing is there, on the Port log, with an official complaint of unauthorized launch, duly logged against them by the Lawrence Port Harbormaster’s Office (B. Lafitte, controller on duty).

The complaint has forced them to dock at Station and speak with Security or risk being fired upon by any military vessels in system. No matter the reason, they’re here now, berthed at M2-09, with no departure time listed and Station regulations requiring all ships (in the official sections) to be clamped in place making it impossible to leave without authorization.

Dean logs out. Beside him, the Sta still punches numbers in, her double-thumbed, four-fingered hand fluent on the keys and from the noises she’s making Dean assumes the answers she’s receiving aren’t unacceptable.

  


.oOo.

  


The M2 corridor only houses docks and warehouses. One of the warehouse’s oversized double-doors are open, showing the silent bustling activity within as Cirriath in their groups of five sort, with near telepathic teamwork, through recently arrived cargo.

At dock three, two copper-skinned Sta tower above a woman. They acknowledge Sam and Dean as they pass and return to their conversation. The next two odd-numbered docks are vacant, green ‘free’ lights advertising their space. At dock nine, Dean sees the orange ‘occupied’ light, the smooth blankness of closed lock doors and the comm-panel empty of messages or requests.

Had he really thought it would be so easy? That they’d only to present themselves at the lock and the aliens would hand Bobby over to them, recognizing their superior claim? Or they’d find an open, unguarded lock and he and Sam would walk onto the ship and free him? Dean realizes they have never planned what they will do if they found the ship.

The orange light glows a steady negative at them. Dean smiles. They’ll just have to storm them. Sometimes speed and surprise are the only tactic. If they’re lucky, some of the aliens might be stuck in the queue at the Portmaster’s office. But they won’t be there forever. They need Baby and they need to act now.

They take all the shortcuts the booters told them about on the way back. Narrow alleyways snaking between the outstretched arms of Station. They need to backtrack to the K5 section before Sam finds the first shortcut. Damp and smelling of mold, it leads through a low, dark arc to section B7.

Another alley leads from B6 to G2, where they re-emerge into the public corridors for three sections until G5 where another alley should lead them to F4. However, a hundred meters into the alleyway it branches into three different directions.

Sam and Dean stop and a fast argument later they take the central shaft. Dean finds himself touching moist walls that give beneath his hands. The floor’s rough and broken. A handful of makeshift seals branch off into unimaginable dwellings, so close to vacuum that each movement must seem an invitation to disaster.

The alley widens into something older, broader and inhabited. Dean stumbles over a child lying in a patch of shadow on the path. After that they move slightly slower, taking more care. A low, cracked voice begs for a drink from their left. Far ahead, someone screams.

A family, Dean sees the telltale dapplings of tattoos, gathers in an open seal. It is a patchwork hovel, barely large enough to call a room, with pieces of plastic covering old leaks. Bunks crowd two walls and at the third stands a low altar. When they catch Dean looking, they slide the seal shut.

The green phosphorous torches that light, however badly, the alleys give way to the unpredictable flickering of red bulbs. They’re closing in on the screaming, more half-sobs now.

Dean pauses, waiting for Sam to reach his side. Sounds of a struggle, but an unequal one, from just beyond the corner. Someone striking someone else. A determined but useless resistance. Threats: prison, rape, death.

Sam and Dean move around the corner as one, closing in on the three thugs beating, kicking and ripping the clothes off a child.

“—think you’re too good for this kind of work,” the man nearest Dean grunts as he strikes the girl across a face profusely tattooed. Dean can see that she’s fighting with all the fever and hopelessness of someone who knows they are going to lose.

“Getting above yourself I’d say,” the brute continues, only seeing Dean closing in from the side too late.

Dean takes him out cleanly before he can react, doubling him over with a punch to the head. The brute falls heavily to the floor. The tattooed girl shrieks and bites the arm of the woman who’s holding her. The other man faces off against Sam, drawing a short blade to keep him at bay.

“Let her go,” Dean orders.

The woman kicks the girl in the ribs, jerking her arm away and launches herself at Dean. Dean sidesteps her attack, using her own momentum to push her into the wall. On the same beat he spins backward and kicks the knife out of the other man’s hand.

The man hesitates and Sam’s on him, snapping a kick at him then following with a fist to his chin— ‘Let the momentum go through your target,’ Bobby would say. Dean can hear the man’s bone shatter. With a high scream of pain, he falls in a heap clutching his jaw.

The girl picks up the dropped knife and calls a warning. Dean feels a hand grip his shoulder. He turns into it with an elbow to the woman’s face and, still turning, follows with a solid punch to the belly. She falls, gagging, a pool of vomit spreading between her knees.

Sam grabs the girl’s arm, pulling her upright. “Come on,” he urges.

“Shouldna we—” The girl gestures with the knife at the first man, the brute, shifting on the ground; the woman catching her breath.

“Run,” Dean directs and he picks up the girl trusting Sam to protect their rear.

They push through a wall of onlookers, and while none hinders Dean doesn’t stop or put the girl down until they burst out of the alley into the corridor. He lets the girl down, making sure she has her feet under her and strolls as if unconcerned toward the dock the booters have used. The girl follows two steps behind Dean and Sam trails further behind making sure no one is following them.

As they pass a shop, three children sitting under its open window and a rack of knee-length dresses on display, Dean pauses and un-clips his comm-screen.

“I’ll buy you something to replace that—” he stops, trying not to stare.

The girl stands in the corner of the shop’s awning, covering herself as best she can. She’s stuck the blade under her belt and is using both hands to hold together her torn shift. The three children run into the shop, leaving Dean and the girl standing alone while Sam stands in front of a store across the way, maintaining his watch.

She’s beautiful. The intricacy of the tattoos on her face and body give her an eerie quality of perfection, with swirls of yellow, rose and soft green patterns marking her throat, face and arms.

“That were fast.” The girl’s voice is pragmatic, holding no trace self-consciousness.

“What was?”

“That fight were. Whoosh and gone.”

“It seemed slow to me.” Dean looks pointedly at the rack of clothing. “We’d better get you some new clothes.”

“Why?” the girl asks.

“You can’t go around in something that’s ripped to pieces—”

“Why’d you help me?” The girl’s voice sounds much older than her years.

“I couldn’t let them—” Dean falters. “Whatever they meant to do.”

“They meant to sell me to ya man from B run, as a bed girl. But I wouldna have it.”

“Sell you? That’s against the law.” Sam’s drifts closer when it becomes obvious no-one’s chasing them.

The girl regards Sam and Dean with disbelief. “Sure, it be against ya law. Be you supposing that ya Security bothers to protect us tattoos?” She shakes her head.

Dean, knowing it is true that prejudice against the Ridanis extends to a double standard in protecting them from such abuses, flicks through the dresses on offer.

“Anyways,” she continues boldly, “I got my pride. I mean to be ya technician.”

Dean looks back in surprise. “Better you than me.”

The girl looks stunned. “You don’t think it be loony?”

“No, I don’t. Though I guess it won’t be easy. You should pick your own dress.” Dean draws her attention to the rack.

“Sure,” the girl says cheerfully, stepping forward to sort through the rack, drawing out immediately the most expensive sleeveless dress. “You can call me Paisley. I like ya one.”

“Fine,” Dean agrees. The shopkeeper steps forward to transfer the credits required for payment. Paisley, meanwhile, has changed by the simple means of yanking the new dress over the former, pulling at the rip in the old one until it lies in tatters at her feet. She fastens her belt around her hips, the knife disappearing in the process.

“Sure.” She smooths the fabric down with one hand. “I do like this.”

“We have to go.”

“Can you get back to your family all right?” Sam asks.

Instantly a stubborn expression settles on the girl’s face. “Don’t have none,” she declares. “Turned me out. See, I got as much time in ya eddication networks as I could sneak and I tested and got ya good enough marks to get me into ya school, but ya school said it be not fitting for ya tattoo to set in ya same room with ya unmarked students. Sure and supposing thems parents were to find out? Wouldna none of thems be coming back to ya school after it be known ya tattoo were allowed in.”

Dean winces. “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s wrong. But we have to go. Will you be alright?”

“Sure.” Paisley pulls at one of the bead-encrusted braids that surround her face. “I be going with you.”

“You can’t come with us.” Sam tells her.

“You in trouble? I know every way around here.”

Dean raises his hands. “I’m sorry, Paisley. Good-bye.” He turns with Sam and walks away.

Paisley follows them, padding along three meters behind, not at all embarrassed. By pretending to be going on and breaking unexpectedly into the lock, Sam and Dean manage to get the door shut before Paisley can react. Dean does however, see briefly a look of such devastation on her face as the door slides close that he almost reopens it then and there.

He needn’t have worried. When he and Sam reappear with Baby and their duffel bags, Paisley hasn’t moved. The girl’s face brightens when she sees them, shifting to astonishment as Baby floats out behind.

“Sure,” she breaths, staring at the robot. “And glory.”

“Dammit,” Dean curses. “Okay. Get us to M2 as fast as you can. I’ll pay you for it.”

The girl stiffens. “It ain’t payment. It ain’t right to offer me credit. It be poor of you.” Then, seeing that she has shocked Dean, she smiles. “So come on. I can get you there in three alleys. Quick as ya vacuum through ya leak.”

“Pleasant thought,” Sam mutters.

“But you got to introduce me.”

“Introduce you?”

“To ya ’bot.”

“Her name’s Baby.” Dean’s pride is evident in his voice.

“Can we go?”

Paisley makes a solemn movement halfway between a bow and a curtsey. “Much pleased, min Baby. I be Paisley.” Baby blinks her lights and makes a muted response. “And you?” Paisley looks at Sam and Dean.

“My name’s Dean Winchester and this is my brother Sam. Now are you going to show us or not?”

“Sure,” Paisley replies cheerful again. “Just got to get all squared between us, min Winchester. Seeing as you saved my kinnas and now got my service. Till it be returned, a’course.”

“Your kinnas?”

But Paisley’s already off.

She travels at a run. Her stamina’s remarkable given she’s likely suffered from periods of malnourishment during her short life.

Baby has trouble keeping up and in the locks she invariably loses her equilibrium, once rolling so far to the side she ends up upside down. Dean helps her right herself and keeps a steadying hand on her through all consecutive locks.

Paisley’s correct in only needing to take three alleyways.

During the first they inconvenience a drug dealer with their passing, causing him and his client to scatter. The second is the longest and is completely empty, barely lit and resonates with low hisses and echoing footsteps. The third and last isn’t an alleyway at all, rather it’s a maintenance tunnel its walls covered in pipes. Paisley has them well hidden in an alcove before either Sam or Dean hear the four Security personnel making their rounds.

When they reach section M2, the entire corridor is deserted. “Night cycle,” Paisley states tersely. Sam and Dean stop at dock nine. “Why you want in here?” Paisley asks.

A muffled beep sounds and the light on the panel changes from orange to yellow.

“Shit,” breaths Dean. He whistles a brief command to Baby. She skims out to the far wall, opposite the lock. Dean edges out along the wall and Sam rushes to its other side. When Paisley begins to follow, Dean stops her. “Stay back,” he murmurs. “We’re going in.”

The Ridani girl nods. “What for?”

“A man.”

“Sure,” her eyes widen. She pushes away from the wall and darts towards Baby.

Another beep, the panel switches to green and the lock is cycling open. A low exchange of two people speaking can be heard then one steps out.

Timing it perfectly, Dean steps out away from the wall and walks casually past the open lock like he’s simply a passerby.

Standing right next to him… Her? It was irrefutably alien, as tall as a Sta but much thinner, ashen with hints of colors under its skin. Scant yellow not-hair crowns it. The alien is nothing Dean has ever seen before.

Its glance, sweeping the corridor, stops sharply and obviously on Baby. It speaks words to someone unseen behind it and falls into a crouch. From its side it draws some weapon. Aiming it at Baby.

Dean throws himself at the alien, knocking it down; as they both fall, Dean tucks his shoulder and rolls in a somersault up to his feet. It sprawls, reaching for its gun. Paisley darts forward, grabs the weapon and runs back to Baby.

Dean tries to turn and face the doorway but a force like a solid wall strikes him. It spins him around and shoves him backward onto his ass. Sam breaks cover rushing to Dean’s side.

Dean sees the second tall, painfully thin alien draw its weapon. A piercing brilliance and a cry from Paisley sound off to their right. The alien points its weapon at Dean and everything goes dark.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean wakes to the sound of his own voice, an odd counterpoint to the dull ache in his head.

“…nevertheless this matter of gathering firewood for the school remained unresolved,” he hears his voice say in the lilt of a storyteller.

“What be firewood?” asks a new voice.

Dean sits up, immediately regretting it. “Ah,” he says himself this time, bringing a hand to his forehead.

“Min Winchester!” The second voice rises considerably, causing a spike in his pain. “Want ya water?”

“Quiet,” Dean snaps. Then more softly, “I want quiet.” Paisley, sitting against the opposite wall, freezes with one hand extended, holding out a metal flask. Next to her Baby hovers low to the ground that Dean is lying on. She rotates a quarter turn and sings a muted question.

“My head hurts,” Dean answers. “But I think I’m all here. Where’s Sam?”

“On ya other side,” Paisley whispers. “I got ya food and water, might help.” She waves the flask back and forth.

Dean immediately turns to check Sam. He seems to be breathing normally and Dean can’t find any obvious wounds, but he’s out cold. Dean shakes him gently, then more firmly. Finally he places one hand over Sam’s mouth and pinches his nose shut with his other.

Sam wakes with a jerk and Dean releases his nose so he can breathe, but keeps his hand over his mouth, preventing Sam from calling out until Dean’s sure that he has his wits about him.

“Follow my finger,” Dean instructs and holds his hand in front of Sam’s face moving his finger back and forth, making sure Sam’s eyes follow. Or that was the plan. Sam slaps his hand aside and tries to sit up.

Groaning, Sam collapses back down and holds his temples with his hands.

“Min Winchester!” Paisley skootches over. “Want ya water?”

Dean takes the flask from her and, picking Sam’s head up, presses it to his brother’s lips, slowly pouring the water into his mouth. “Come on Sammy, drink, you’ll feel better.”

Sam swallows several mouthfuls before pushing the flask up and away. “Remind me never to play with strange weapons again,” he jokes half-heartedly. Dean helps him to sit up against the wall. Paisley holds out a second container of food and waits with Baby as patient as only robots, those long used to poverty and true hunters can be, while the brothers eat and drink.

Dean stands and paces out their cell. Four meters square, grey walls and a ceiling so high it feels out of proportion. A door shaped outline mars one wall, with a recessed control panel next to it encased behind plastic. He sits down finally and looks at Baby.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Dean directs to Baby.

A rising tone from Baby.

“Do what?” Paisley asks.

Dean takes the flask Sam holds out to him, sips from it slowly. “My voice.”

Baby sings, _Your voice is the one know I best._

“What’d she say?” Paisley asks.

“Sure,” Baby talks in Paisley’s voice, “and glory.”

Paisley cries out and scuttles away from Baby, then giggles.

Dean whistles a long phrase.

“What’d that mean?” demands Paisley. “If she kin talk, why’s she make ya music? Why don’t you just talk to her?”

Baby sings back to Dean and he smiles faintly, looking at Paisley. Against the grey monotony, the girl’s tattoos seems muted. “At first, when I found Baby, it was the only way we had to communicate. By music. Later I discovered she knew Standard, but that would’ve been less of a challenge. And much less efficient, or as fun I suspect, for Baby.”

“Oke,” Paisley tries to look wise. “Maybe, I guess.”

“Consider this,” Sam joins the conversation “while I’m not as good as my brother, it allows us to communicate without anyone else understanding.”

“Sure.” The girl finds firm ground here. “Like ya hand talk. No-one else knows.”

“Right.” Dean agrees and Paisley beams like a student just given the day’s gold star. “After all,” Dean continues, “the extra effort gives you the advantage.”

Paisley nods sagely, surveying Baby with a more calculating eye. “Once we scam here, we could haul ya fast imperial.”

Baby sings, _If you would, could you translate?_

“Does that mean theft?” Dean asks.

“Oke much!” Paisley’s growing enthusiastic. “With min Baby we could run ya real—” She falters. Baby is singing in a dissonant key to Dean, who frowns. “I didn’t mean it!” Paisley cries. “I just—” Her breath hitches. “I really do want to be ya tech. Honest lock. Not nothing else. Glory hang me if it ain’t true.”

Dean blinks. “I believe you. It just occurs to me that to… ah… scam this place we might have to burglarize our way out. All of you.” Dean pins the three of them with his look. “I need a complete description of everything that happened. Everything you saw, or think you saw, or heard.”

“I saw you get hit and ran to you then I think the second alien shot us,” Sam reports.

“We be gone,” Paisley says. “You went down, min Baby went all bright, so I couldna see. One of ya boyos grabbed me and I couldna shake loose and he dragged me in.” She appears dejected then her face clears. “But I lit fussy, sure,” she concludes.

_The young lady did most laudably bite, kick, scratch and scream. God in Heaven alone know what alarms her commotion raised down the section. As you were interred within the vessel, it seemed most prudent to me to follow. At this time seven Kapellan crew members arrived at the lock._

Dean whistles for an interruption and Baby closes her phrase elegantly. “What did you call them?”

 _They register to the description of Kapellans, an alien sentient bipedal species native to a star system near the one which humans once referred to in the common Terran usage as Kapella. However, according to all current information in my data banks, their presence in this sector of space is anomalous, therefore—_ She stops abruptly mid phrase.

The ship shudders underneath them. Baby sways slightly in the air. Paisley reaches a hand out to steady herself against the wall. Somewhere above them, three short chimes sound, followed by one long chime and a brief spoken phrase.

 _Vectoring to window,_ Baby sings. _Do you desire an estimate?_

“Yes.”

_I transpose. Window transition will occur in twelve minutes._

“What’s for eating?” Paisley attempts and fails at keeping her voice calm. She slides down the wall, one hand pulling her shift down over her wildly patterned knees.

“We’re going over,” Dean tells her grimly. “I can’t have been out that long. They must’ve got to Tagalong. Fuck. They must have power.”

“We on ya road?” Paisley’s eyes widen. “I never thought.”

Baby sinks down to the grey floor between Sam and Dean.

 _You mentioned them before._ Dean puts a hand on her cold metal surface. “Kapellans.” He tries the word slowly in speech.

“What?” Paisley pushes herself up and away from the wall where she was sitting and moving over to sit next to Dean.

“Imperial class ship,” Dean mutters. “Anomalous. This sector—sector?—of space. Therefore what, Baby?”

_Therefore the data did not compute. You will find nevertheless that it alone fits the required specifications._

During the pause that follows, Paisley pulls a comb out from her belt and unravels a single slender plait near one ear. While holding the loose beads in one hand she combs the hair out and braids it again.

“What happened after we were all in the lock?” Dean asks.

“See,” Paisley her deft fingers unceasing in their task, “we was all on, so I stopped fussing and started looking. Ya boyos didna like me much. They let me go and herded me, much as they could. Just corridors, smaller’n Station. Closed doors. I counted, though. I could scam us out easy as frilled back, honest lock. Didna hear naught. Saw three of ya boyos in different clothes off to one place. None more. They tossed us here. Bit later we hooked off from Station. Noisy, that. And here we be.”

Baby succinctly adds more detail. She had monitored color changes, heat patterns, sound referents. She’d found one clue. Using her internal lights she shines a map of the ship on the grey floor. Paisley oohs agreeably and traces their route for Dean. Baby compliments her on her sense of direction.

 _And?_ Dean prompts.

 _Here._ (A green light.) _Through one closed hatchway not immune to heat sense awareness_ she tangents into the evolution of the Kapellan optical limitations, but Dean cuts off this deviation. _was a human pattern._

_Then these Kapellans aren’t human?_

_Negative._

_And this pattern?_

_Definitely human. Enclosed in such a cell, seemingly, as you, Sam, the child and I._

_You can sense through this seal?_ He looks at the seam in the grey wall.

_Certainly. I am equipped to mimic most sentient sensing patterns, in this case infrared heat patterning._

_Is anyone out there?_ Dean stands and walks to the seam.

_Negative._

He turns and paces the cell.

“What you be talking about?” Paisley demands.

Sam answers allowing Dean to think. “We’re being held by aliens, who are evidently called Kapellans. And it seems the man we’re seeking is in a cell similar to this one, just down the corridor from us.”

The ship lurches and chimes echo from above. Paisley falls forward, Sam throws himself over Baby and she sings an incomprehensible melody. Dean keeps his feet.

They go through.

 

> _Dean sees the kata whole. The moves diverging each on its own web out into infinity, but instantaneously coming to rest at their beginning. A finite loop of endlessness. The finger bends just so, the wrist holds perfectly, the angle of the knee here, a window made by the hands: ‘to look at the sky’._

And come out.

Dean still stands, centered, his hands rising together. He sighs and drops them. Paisley, flung to the floor, gasps and pushes herself up to sit again. Sam lifts himself from Baby and coughs, dry heaving once.

Baby sings quietly

_”I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings_  
_Coming down is the hardest thing”_

“Where are we?” Paisley asks her voice small.

Dean crouches beside Sam, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “If we go over again, we’ll be coming into Beaconsfield. But if we’re coming into system now, it’s Brighton. I don’t care how much power these spooks have, it’s got to be one or the other.”

“Spooks?”

Sam looks up. “You’ve never been downside, on planet?”

“Never,” Paisley admits, “we can’t go much of anywhere.”

“We?”

Paisley lifts her arm. Her tattoos twine in vivid pattern.

Sam’s cheeks show his embarrassment, turning a pale shade of pink. His body is still feeling the disorientation from the jump.

“First time’s the worst, Sammy,” Dean reminds him, urging Sam to lie down with his legs lifted up against the wall.

“Stop calling me that. Sammy was a chubby twelve year old.”

“Spooks? Funny word,” Paisley comments.

“It’s a creature. We also call it Boo, or Ghost. They live down on Kansas, have done since long before ever we came,” Sam tells her. “So we call anything funny or weird that, people sometimes, but mostly just—”

“Those things, they’re nothing like us.” Dean interrupts. “People say they capture the souls of dead people. Who knows if they have any awareness at all?”

Paisley sighs and drops her chin to rest on one fist. Dean stands back up and walks to the door, studying the seam.

 _When they came out of the lock, it was you they recognized._ Dean turns to look at Baby. _You they stopped for. They knew you. But no-one_ here _knows you._ He rubs at the back of his neck. _What did you mean ‘another sector of space’?_

Baby’s lights produce a spray of bright points spreading across the floor as she rises high above it. Sam quickly moves to stand upright so he too can look at the pattern created.

 _You restored me in this district,_ A light blinks red. Paisley slips back as the design spreads, staring at it in awe. _My calculations indicate we have appeared here._ (A blue light.) _Or here._ (A second blue light.)

 _Where is Central?_ Dean whistles

“It be ya star map!” Paisley whispers.

_Data incomplete. My investigations on Kansas indicate House Campbell’s domain of trade embraces limited regional boundaries. Navigation links beyond that domain are nonexistent._

“You been telling me,” Paisley speaks, “’bout growing up. Where be you born?”

Sam, Dean and Paisley search but can’t see any changes to the section of stars they have moved to surround. Slowly they step backwards until Sam spots the two blinking green lights. He points to them.

“Impossible,” Dean exclaims.

“Sure,” Paisley whispers, “and glory.”

 _Where do you think this ship came from?_ Dean asks. _You said before, the common—_ he hesitates over the unusual pattern of notes _Terran usage._

A yellow light blinks into being on the map, closer to the green ones than the blues and red, but still almost the cell’s width away from either. Baby has risen high enough now that the scattered points fill the entire floor, dappling Sam, Dean and Paisley.

“Paradise,” Paisley whispers.

“Who?” Dean turn to the girl.

Paisley sings in a high, slightly nasal voice

_Ya Dancer hae, he come, he come,_  
_Tae lead us far, tae home, tae home._  
_Lost we are, belly down day,_  
_Through ya mountains winds ya way._

She pauses, staring at some facet of the tattoos on her right arm. “But no-one knows ya way no more. Ya way back.”

“No-one knows ya way,” Dean echoes.

Paisley looks up from her arm. “You know ya story, too?”

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know it.”

“Is it a Ridani story?” Sam askes

“Sure. It be ya story about how ya people, us _tattoos_ ,” she speaks the word like it’s a curse, “come to be here. Long ago, there be ya place where many o’ ya people lived in sore poverty. Not so much different, really. And ya govinment wanted to be rid o’ them—allays has, here or there, cause they never understood ya patterning,” She lifts a colorful hand to illustrate. “But there be no way, as ya people be too poor to go elsewheres, despite wishing for ya better home. Until Dancer come. He were one o’ us, you see, but graced with ya power to see farther into ya pattern. Ya story starts with him.”

“Tell us,” Sam asks.

Paisley’s voice changes, taking on a deeper, even huskier tone.

_Dancer come took his folk out_  
_Morning bright-o day,_  
_Said, “Follow my pattern,” hey come ho_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

_Folk they had not one day’s bread_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_Nor job nor rooftop hey come ho_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

_Dancer say, “We go on ya road”_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_“Tae green grass land come” hey come ho_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

She pauses smiling. “It be ya long tale.”

“Go on,” encourages Dean.

Paisley takes a deep breath. “Ya folk certain wanted ya green grass land, but they be scared o’ ya Lowroad. _‘Cold as night’s breath,’_ it be. _‘Still as death’s hand.’_ Dancer, he fell wrath and sore, cause they said they never go on ya ships. So he curse them with ya old grey flat. It be ya worst place o’ all to live. Death and sickness and ya babes crying all day for milk.”

“And what happened?”

Paisley picks up the tale again in her husky singsong, enhancing her words with formal hand movements.

_Now up then spoke min Bonny’s child_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_Jehanna said, “No danger here”_  
_“Sun is up, come morning.”_

_Folk they heartened to her voice_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_Come they back to ya Lowroad ships_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

_Jehanna she caught Dancer’s eye_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_He promise green grass land once more_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

“So they go there,” Sam assumes.

“Sure,” Paisley agrees. “Dancer, he led them on ya Lowroad. He be caught by Jehanna, lift her up and now he wish her to pattern with him. Bless be. But Jehanna turn round her bright head, speak out proud. Refuse him. See, she never wanted ya man. She wanted ya green grass land.”

“What did Dancer do?”

“Sure, now _there_ be ya story.” Baby’s pinpoint lights cover them, slipping in and out of Paisley’s tattoos like they have always been part of her pattern.

_Now grew he fierce now grew he cold_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_Never she wavered hey come ho_  
_Sunlight dims, dark morning._

_Now cast he folk out on Lowroad_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_And lost they wandered hey come ho_  
_Sunlight dims, dark morning._

_Jehanna led them far and cold_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_Till came they here come hey come ho_  
_Sunlight dimmed, dark morning._

_“And never shall you come back,” he cried_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_“Never in green grass land abide”_  
_Sunlight dimmed, dark morning._

_“Not till Jehanna gets child by me”_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_“And our son grows tae lead you back”_  
_Sun shine dim-dark morning._

_Now live we far from green grass land_  
_Morning dim-dark way_  
_But Jehanna’s proud come hey come ho_  
_Sun it brings the morning._

_Jehanna she’ll get Dancer’s child_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_Jehane she’ll call him hey come ho_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

_We’ll come one day tae green grass land_  
_Morning bright-o day_  
_When Jehane he dance us down ya way_  
_Sun shine bright-o morning._

Paisley lowers her hands first then her breath escapes her in a long sigh that fills the room. She looks up at Sam and Dean. “So ya people be waiting,” she speaks now in her normal voice. “Till Jehane come to dance us down to ya place where we can live without being hated and poor.”

“It’s a sad story, Paisley,” Sam sighs.

“Sad?” Paisley looks confused, looking up at Baby, who’s still hovering silently above. “It ain’t sad. You only grow patience by waiting for ya ship what may only come for ya great-grandchildren. That be ya way it be.”

“I suppose it made me think of my family’s House, in a way,” Dean reflects, almost to himself. “I never belonged there. Maybe some people can’t ever find their true homes. Or don’t recognize them when they find them.” He studies the blinking spread of lights across the floor.

“Sometimes you got to lose it first,” Paisley speaks as if to herself. “To know what it were.”

But Dean is now staring at the lights. “It fits!” he exclaims. He whistles to Baby. The robot flashes a series of lights on her surface, singing and the projection vanishes.

“What do you mean?” Sam looks as puzzled as Paisley.

“I told you he was old,” Dean directs at Sam, “but I didn’t know he was as old as all that.”

“As all what?” Paisley asks

“Well.” Baby drifts down to level with Dean’s head, a soft melody accompanying his explanation. “You know yourself from your story that we all came here, except the Sta, of course, from a place a long ways away, a long time ago.”

“Tirra-li,” Paisley nods. “But no one knows ya way back no more.”

“That’s right. Terra. No-one knows any more how to get back.” Dean frowns. “Could you get back there, Baby, given a ship?”

_Negative. Data incomplete._

“No-one kin get back,” Paisley stubbornly repeats. “Ya first Highroaders, they tried. But ya way be haunted now, with ya old ghost ship, lost forever. And it be sure horrible torment if ya ghost ship find you looking on ya old way.”

Dean smiles. “I don’t know if I think it’s haunted, but it’s sure lost. At least to us.”

“And who not to? Central’d be happy as ifkin to be rid of us.” Paisley pauses and with a rebellious look lifts one patterned hand to touch her face. “Us tattoos.”

“Then where did these aliens come from? If what Baby says is true.”

Paisley, struck by this point, lowers her hand speechless.

Dean resumes his earlier pacing. “Damn, Baby must have been sitting in the warehouse for an age.”

“Don’t min Baby know?”

“She was deactivated. It’s all blank. It was pure stubbornness on my part that I was able to get her working at all.”

Paisley moves to where Baby hovers, laying a hand on her cool, hard surface. “Sure,” she looks at Dean. “Min Baby, she ain’t like other ’bots. She be smart. I mean, real smart, not fake smart.”

Several of Baby’s lights blink. “Thank you, Miss Paisley,” she replies using Sam’s voice. Paisley grins and pats her.

 _Stop that, Baby,_ Dean whistles. _Use a different voice, please._

_Forgive me, your voice along with Sam’s and the child’s are the only voices I have had enough study time to reproduce._

_Forgiven_ , Dean whistles, he walks over and touches her. She sings softly a sweet hymn. “We’ll have to find her someone else’s voice to study,” Dean comments to no-one in particular.

“Ah,” Paisley brings them back to topic. “What about ya spooks?”

“Ya spooks.” Dean recommences his pacing around the perimeter of the cell, circling around Sam, Paisley and the Impala. “I’ve never heard or seen anything like them before. They have enough energy to waste on non-premium windows. They have, by the Void, aircars. And Baby says they shouldn’t be here. If that map—” He stops. “If they came over the Highroad, to here, maybe, back there, the navigation routes weren’t lost. Maybe them, or our old people, from the places we must have come from, maybe they just didn’t care to come here. Too far and unimportant. Or maybe they couldn’t. Or—” He runs out of theories. “But it explains why they recognize Baby, if she’s from back over the long road.”

Baby sings, in four-part harmony, that she is.

“But what kind of threat are you to them?” Dean asks.

_It appears to me that since I have never met any of their kind before, I must therefore be no threat at all._

“Never?” He frowns. “Then why did they try to shoot you? And in Station, when everyone knows that it’s—”

“Five terms,” Paisley supplies and at Dean’s inquiring look continues, “It be ya sentence, for lockup, for using ya guns.” A pause. “Min Winchester,” Paisley starts again, hesitant now, “be you thinking they mean to kill us?”

Dean shares a look with Sam. “I don’t know.”

“You’d think they would’ve done so by now, if that’s what they wanted,” Sam adds.

“Reckon they be curious why we be here?” asks Paisley. “Sure and you did say before that…” she falters.

Dean has gone very still. His body mirroring his thoughts, poised, alert, ready to spring. He stares at the opposite wall, like he’s looking through it to something veiled beyond. “Bobby. They must know we’re after Bobby.”

“Who be Bobby?” Paisley asks.

“Our teacher,” Sam replies.

“Our sensei,” Dean speaks at the same time. “The man we came for.”

The watch rings out above them, four short chimes, two long and the alien voice.

 _Docking procedure. Shall I transpose?_ sings Baby. _Docking procedures shall commence in twenty-nine minutes. Therefore, according to known information, we have reached Brighton system._

“They came in fast,” Dean muses. “From window to docking.”

_Affirmative. What plans do you have for our removal from this vessel?_

“Sure, and glory,” Paisley exclaims. “I never been nowhere but Kansas Station. When I told them I’d go over ya Highroad someday, they all laughed.”

Sam staring at the same wall asks. “If they’re from over the way, why do they want Bobby?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Learning to Fly** by _Tom Petty_.  
>  Ridani folk song.


	6. Chapter 6

Paisley hadn’t exaggerated when she said docking was noisy. For some unknown reason, the entire sequence of coming to and grappling plays out in ship bells and commands sound out over the ships internal intercom system. When the noise ceases abruptly, the silence feels deafening.

“I be hungry,” Paisley mumbles.

“I’m thirsty,” Sam commiserates.

Dean drops to a crouch beside Baby. _Can we see that plan of the ship again?_ It appears on the floor. “Show me again,” he asks Paisley, “What was the route they took to get us here?”

She traces it out, again and again, until both Sam and Dean have it memorized.

“No doors or locks to go through? Except this one and the station lock? No lifts? This one here, Baby.” Dean points to the room down the corridor from their own. “It had the other human?” Dean settles on to the floor, legs crossed.

“We either have to break for it and hope we’re not seen, or grab one as a hostage for safe conduct,” Sam verbalizes Dean’s thoughts.

Dean whistles, _Baby. Can you get into their comm system? Open the door that way?_

_Negative. I do not have the relevant information on Kapellan computation networks. However, I am forty-seven percent fluent in their spoken tongue, according to the specifications of the Habir-Xu xenographic language index. Do you desire its compilation figures?_

“I believe you,” Dean replies.

“How we going to run ya scam?”

“I don’t know.” Dean inspects the thin seam of the door. “Brighton downside is supposed to be a great place to take the holidays, but Brighton Station? I don’t know. It’s an orbiter like Beaconsfield’s, but at least we’ve been on Beaconsfield Station before. We have an idea of the layout there.”

“You bin on Beaconsfield?”

“Just Beaconsfield Station, ‘bout ten years ago.” Sam answers. “Dean caught me running away. I wasn’t going to stay no matter what he said, so he came with me.”

Paisley looks like she wants to ask more, but realizing it is not the time for that story, instead asks, “And this couldna be ya Beaconsfield?”

Dean smiles slightly. “Not unless they’ve got a shit load of energy and the best pilot in Riven space.” He pauses, considering. “Paisley, do you still have that knife?”

Paisley freezes statue still in the act of turning, the angles of her face are shadowless in the diffuse light. Then, as if she were a stop-action thrown into motion, she completes the movement without any obvious self-consciousness and directs a wide-eyed smile at Dean. “What knife?” she asks.

“The one,” Dean replies, looking straight at her, “that you grabbed off the man I knocked out.”

“Sure,” Paisley speaks without hesitation. She reaches down the front of her dress and pulls the knife out. “It be ya sharp,” she finishes, offering it hilt first to Dean.

Dean tossed it in the air a couple of times, holding it lightly, testing the balance. “It’ll do,” he hands the weapon to his brother. Paisley, watching Sam handle the knife, comes to a decision.

“I got ya gun too,” she stands up. This time she produces the weapon the first alien used to shoot at Baby.

“Damn,” breathes Dean, stepping forward to take it from her. It’s a dull grey with unlit controls and a standard structural design. “Paisley!” The girl starts, taking a step back. “Didn’t they search you?”

Paisley shrugs. “I fussed. Lit in good. Maybe ya spooks didna see me grab it up. They just threw us in here, nip and tuck. Min Baby, she were bright as ya kinnas wheel. They left you ya belt screens. Maybe they didna notice.”

“Maybe.” Dean holds the gun out. “Here.” Paisley stays put. “Take it.”

“You want me to—” Paisley breaks off, reaching slowly forward and takes the weapon from Dean. “Sure,” she says under her breath.

“Don’t try to fire it,” Dean warns. “But if we’re running, you use it to bluff them. Be careful Paisley, if your bluff doesn’t work, they’ll use their guns and shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” Paisley agrees a little unsteadily. She thrusts the gun between her belt and dress. “What will you use?”

“I’m best in close. We have to trust in that.” _Baby, watch the door. Warn us if anyone approaches._

Baby sings a few chords.

“We need to conserve our strength.” Dean sits down on the floor facing the door. Sam and Paisley settle on either side of him

“What we going to do?” Sam asks.

“They’re better armed, better prepared and on their own ground.” Dean sighs. “We only have one chance. It’s got to be hard and fast, or we don’t stand a chance.” He grins savagely. “Then we get Bobby, go for the lock and get out.”

“But what do we do? I mean, how? And when?” Paisley asks.

Dean looks at Sam “We do what Bobby trained us to do, set patterns won’t work.” He turns to Paisley. “We make it up as we go.”

“Sure and glory,” Paisley smiles.

  


.oOo.

  


Baby is playing _‘Mountain Jam’_ when she cuts off mid phrase. Paisley, curled up half-asleep, starts awake, hands slapping to the floor as she steadies herself. Sam and Dean are already standing. Dean whistles two notes. Baby replies with four.

“Paisley, up. Two.”

Paisley pushes herself up, one hand on the weapon at her belt. “Coming in?” Her voice barely audible.

“Can’t tell.” Dean shifts his position to the other side of the door from Sam, pauses and with a move of his head signals to Paisley to move to the end of the cell opposite the door. “They’ll see us as soon as they come through the door,” he adds in an undertone. “If they come in, you—”

A low bell. The seam opens. Paisley drops to the floor in a tumbling faint as the first alien steps through. Seeing the girl fall, it walks three paces past Sam and Dean before realizing where they are. The second alien stops in the arch, holding a snub-nosed gun just like Paisley’s in its right hand.

Dean attacks, dislodging the gun with his first strike, slamming it back into the door frame with the second. The third strike, to the alien’s temple, drives its head into the metal ridge with a loud thunk and it crumples to the floor.

Dean spins. The other alien is already pinned to the ground by Sam, who has one hand around the alien’s mouth and the other pinning an arm above its head. Sam’s knee in its back prevents it getting up but it is reaching its second hand towards its belt. Baby floats forward, coming to rest above the alien. An appendage snakes out of the robot.

“Sam, back,” hisses Dean and his brother springs backward.

The alien reaches its belt at the same time the appendage touches its neck. Baby flashes, an instant of brilliant light, and the alien goes limp.

“You didna kill him?” whispers Paisley, eyes riveted to Baby.

 _Negative. Rendered unconscious._ Baby sings.

“She didn’t,” Dean translates. “Let’s grab the other one. We’ll need him to open doors.”

Sam and Paisley get to their feet. “It be all ya real, ain’t it?” she asks, her mouth tightening into a straight line. “Bless me, Mother of all,” she mutters under her breath, making a furtive series of signs with one hand.

Sam and Dean are at the door, lifting the alien. “By the Void, its light.” Dean comments to Sam as Baby drifts out into the corridor. “Do you think she can support it by herself?”

Paisley walks forward. She looks in that moment even thinner than the alien. “A’course.” She adjusts herself to take the creature’s weight. The body hangs all over her. “I done ya dock work, ain’t I?”

“Yeah Dean.” Sam pokes his tongue out at his older brother before turning to Paisley smiling. “Thank you. It’ll be a big advantage having both of us free to fight.” He takes position at the rear of their group.

Dean hands one of the guns to Sam then stations himself at the alien’s head, knife out. Once they clear the seam the door to the cell shuts soundlessly, concealing the other body.

Baby leads them. Right at the first branching of the grey corridor. There are voices at the next, disappearing into some sealed-off area. Left, straight, right again. Baby stops at a door seam.

“Here?” Dean steps forward.

Baby sings.

“No!”

“What be wrong?” Paisley’s voice has taken on an even huskier tone. Under the tattoos, her face seems pale. The alien shifts on her shoulder, a tentative movement.

“Baby said no-one’s in here. It can’t be.” Dean slaps the alien. Its eyes blink open. Paisley holds her breath. First its eyelids open, then beneath those, a second thin membrane flicks outward. Dean lifts the knife, resting its point at the inner corner of the alien’s eye, blade resting along the high curve of nostril. He whistles to Baby.

Baby speaks the alien’s language. The alien shudders and replies. Baby sings.

“Let it move,” he requests of Paisley. She lets it go and it slowly stands on its own feet. Dean holds the knife steady against its face. It moves to the door and touches at the panel there. The door opens revealing an empty room.

The intercom explodes with bells and a long command. Voices sound behind them, echoing along the corridor.

“Baby, put him out.”

Baby, touches him from behind, singing a warning. Dean and Paisley jump back. Brightness. The alien falls.

“Paisley, grab its arm.” Dean stoops, pulling it. He whistles to Baby.

Paisley grabs its other arm. “Leave him. It’d be faster.”

“We need it to get off the ship. Damnit, it’ll be faster if I carry it.”

Dean hands Sam his gun, slots the knife in his belt and picks the alien up, slinging it over his shoulders. It only takes a moment and they’re able to pick up the pace. Paisley in the lead, Sam with guns in both hands right on Dean’s heels, Baby trailing behind them.

“Right here.” Paisley turns. A door opens behind them. Someone shouts. A loud shrill noise, a flash of bright light, a scream cut off. “Where be Baby?”

“Catching up. Which way do we turn here?” Dean knows, he’s memorized the route, but needs to get Paisley back on track.

Paisley nods. “Right. There’s a big room, then ya lock. I saw what sequence it touched, back there. I kin open ya lock.”

The corridor opens into a large room. Outworld equipment the likes of which Dean has never seen hangs along the walls. A low bell chimes nearby. The door into the room slides shut behind them.

“Min Baby!” cries Paisley, whirling back. She throws herself at the door.

Dean lets the alien slip out of his grasp and fall to the floor.

“Paisley!”

She’s at the panel sobbing. “But I saw it! It were this pattern. It were!” The door remains shut.

“Paisley!” This time from Sam.

Paisley turns. “But we can’t leave her. She and youse be ya only friends I got.”

“Help me,” orders Dean. “Where’s the lock?”

“Through there.” Paisley points at a dim recess, wiping at her cheeks.

“Come on.” Dean manhandles the aliens limp body into the recess.

Sam and Paisley follow, he’s rubbing her back as she sniffs and hiccups. The panel blinks orange. Muted bells sound over the intercom. A shrill whine rises from the room behind them. Paisley turns toward it.

“Sam guard us, Paisley, help me get him awake.” Dean slaps the alien. “Do that.” He grabs it with both hands again, holding it at a height for Paisley.

She smacks it full on the cheek, a second time, with a shade too much enthusiasm. A word escapes it. Its eyes flicker. The voice is back on the intercom and the shrill whine behind them increases in pitch. That perhaps more than Paisley’s final, hardest slap, brings the alien bolt upright, eyes open. Dean swings it against the wall and pulls the knife, laying it along the alien’s face all in one motion. Letting go with his left hand, Dean points at the panel.

“You know what I want.” He eases the knife point closer to its eye. Its eyelids flicker again, like it is about to pass out, but it stands very slowly and lifts a hand to the panel. It touches the panel once, then again and again. It must be a sign as sudden command sounds over the intercom then five high bells, but the lock opens.

“But it be still—” Paisley’s words are cut off as the second seal, five steps in, eases open. Beyond they catch the familiar bands and symbols of a station docking sector.

“By the Void,” says Dean. “That looks like Beaconsfield Station ident.” The alien shifts and Dean slugs it in the stomach. As it doubles over, he cups its neck in one hand and, with the hilt of the knife, hits it directly at the base of its neck. The alien goes limp in his hands. Dean lays it over the doorway.

“Get to the other door,” Dean tells Paisley. “Stand in the doorway.”

“We ain’t leaving min Baby!”

“No, we ain’t. Go. Don’t move from that doorway.” Dean grabs Sam, tells him to back her up and runs back into the big room.

The whine reaches an excruciating pitch. Dean can barely hear the intercom above it. The seal is starting to glow. Approaching it, he stops due to the heat emanating from it. He backs away, lifting one hand to shield his face, the other covers an ear. There’s shouting on the intercom. The whine pierces through the chamber. Dean backs into the recess. Glancing over his shoulder, Dean sees Sam and Paisley poised in the lock opening; beyond them, a figure in purple stands, curious in the station corridor.

With a shriek like a ghost caught in a drill, the door into the big room ruptures and Baby sails through. Behind her, pale scrawny figures merge and part but don’t move forward. Dean jumps backward over the unconscious alien.

“Throw your guns down,” he thrusts the knife back into his belt. Sam lets the guns in his hands fall onto the floor of the lock, but his eyes focus on the interior of the alien ship, his mouth open. Baby appears her surface glowing, heat shimmering off her.

“Step back.” Dean pushes them into the station. Baby enters the lock. Behind her, Dean can see tall shapes approaching. A sharp whistle and he and Baby are out of the doorway. The lock slides shut behind them. Baby sings a dissonant chord. She glows a strange copperish tone in the harsh station lighting. Dean turns.

They’ve attracted a crowd. Paisley stands stock-still, her tattoos showing up florid against the unmarked faces gawking at her. Sam stands partially in front of her.

The station corridor curves away, berths and where the curve bends out of view, a portside shop district. Dean forces himself forward, singling out an individual. There a silver-toned Sta, male by his cresting mane.

“Excuse me, Esstavi. Is this Brighton?” He scarcely recognizes his own voice. His eyes shift once right once left. The crowd seems thinnest to the right, where it leads to more berths. Safer perhaps, to go left toward the shops.

“Brighton?” The Sta’s accented reply is half-sibilant, half-unvoiced growl.

“Brighton system. What system is this?”

The Sta, unable to blink, turns a head to glance pointedly at a companion, a brown-skinned woman in a pale robe.

A beep sounds from the berth console. Paisley yelps. The orange ‘occupied’ light changes to yellow.

“Left,” Dean says in a conversational tone. He whistles three notes. “Run.” He breaks left.

Paisley dives, rolling under a number of moving feet and emerging on the far side of the crowd. Baby rises straight for the ceiling, trailing above Dean. Sam and Dean ruthlessly elbow their way through. Paisley is somehow ahead of them, already running, so they chase after her.

A swelling of sound from behind them, a rush of voices, a yell. Faint, faint and far above them, Baby is singing. People dodge out of their way, cursing laughing, startled. Paisley bumps into a gold-skinned Sta and shoves past. The commotion spreads before and behind.

Shops appear now on the right-hand side of the station corridor. Dean, trying to keep as near the edge as possible, vaults over an out-flung chair at a café. Sam is able to dodge around it but it slows them both.

Paisley ahead pauses to let them catch up. At the tables, diners point up at Baby’s advance over their heads. Dean glances back at the crowd’s milling confusion at the pale thin forms pushing purposefully through.

“Go,” he shouts at Paisley. But Paisley doesn’t move. The girl’s eyes have fixed on something inside one of the shops. Dean, coming up beside her, takes hold of a tattooed arm and starts to pull. Sam, seeing what’s caught her attention, grabs his arm and pulls him backward pointing.

Three of them emerge from the shop door, guns in hand.

“Now what’s this?” the woman asks. Her almost white hair contrasts against the black and grey of her Security uniform. Three gold bars, denoting sergeant’s rank, tip her sleeves. “Quite a fuss on comms, I must say.” She aims her weapon at Dean. “Let the tattoo go. You own her?”

Dean releases Paisley and steps forward. “No I don’t—”

“She your servant?” The sergeant’s voice is steady and cold.

“No,” Dean answers stiffly. “She happens to be—”

The sergeant makes a motion with her free hand to one of her companions. “Take it down to Block 7. File it in.”

“Hold on.” Dean steps back and wedges Paisley between himself and Sam, who stands transfixed, staring at the black and grey uniforms. “You can’t just take her.”

One of the men comes up to Paisley. “Just be happy you ain’t going where she is,” he tells them, not unkindly. “Cute, ain’t she?”

“No!”

The noise of the crowd rises, swelling, then ceases. Five gaunt aliens filter in around Dean’s group. Two of them keep their eyes fixed above on Baby. All are empty handed. One fastens its eyes on the sergeant. It speaks in a rush of unknown words.

“Say it in Standard,” the sergeant orders, lifting her gun slightly, “or don’t say it at all.”

A hurried consultation, then another steps forward. “I so claim,” it speaks with a heavy unfamiliar accent, “these my prisoner.” It points to Dean, Paisley, Sam in turn and then up at Baby.

“Yeah?” the sergeant questions. “You can tell them that down at precinct office. I suppose you have all your papers in order?” The aliens begin a discussion between themselves. “Now take that tattoo down,” she continues, taking advantage of their disagreement. The second man grabs Paisley’s arm and twists it up behind the girl’s back. The woman moves forward to stand in front of Dean. “We can bring you nice, or we can bring you mean, but we’re bringing you. Do you understand?”

“Ain’t no use, min Winchester,” Paisley sounds defeated. “But thank you, all the same.” She pulls away from Dean. “You’ve got no charges—”

“Shut it, kid.” The sergeant motions with her gun. “You, give us your knife.” Dean after a quick glance around, hands it over to their third man. “Now, we’re going down to the office. Your friends here,” and she favors the aliens with a contemptuous look, “can come if they want.”

“This is ridiculous,” Dean turns away. The officer he’d given the knife to grasps his shoulder in a firm grip.

“You own that ’bot?” the sergeant asks, looking up.

“Yes.”

“Huh. Better tell it to come along, then.” Black and grey uniforms shift through the thickening crowd, more Security arriving. The aliens back off. “Get that tattoo out of here,” she continues, grimacing. “Are you going to be a problem?” she directly asks Sam and, when he shakes his head, she finishes, “let’s go.”

They move forward in a loose wedge. “I demand to know what the charges are.” Dean tries to stand his ground, refusing to move, but two more have joined the man next to him and they almost bodily lift Dean, pushing him along. Paisley as unprotesting as a sleepwalker disappears into the crowd. “I demand—” Dean is cut off by the sergeant.

“Public disturbance.” Her voice has the bored inflection of an oft-repeated delivery. “You’re under arrest under section 23-Tf-74.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mountain Jam** by _Allman Brothers Band_.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam maintains his silence all the way to the Security office, four sections down and, with a look, convinces Dean to do the same. Baby floats along just out of arm’s reach above Dean.

Three officers, along with the sergeant, bring them into the precinct office and lead them up to the booking desk.

“This is Beaconsfield, isn’t it?” asks Dean, putting both palms on the opaque counter.

“Where’d you think it was? Central?” one of the men grunts as he walks behind the desk and sits down at a terminal. Several of the others laugh.

Dean knew he recognized the station ident. “Dean, stop,” Sam whispers. He’d been eleven the last time they were here and it’d been a frightening experience for him. They’d tried to run and while ‘roughed up’ was likely an exaggeration they hadn’t been treated with kid gloves.

Beyond the booking desk and row of terminals, a waist high wall separates off a scattering of plastic desks. Here, people pause in their work to watch Sam, Dean and the thing floating above them.

Beyond them a transparent wall seals off the guard’s enclave and a row of barred cells. Dean can see into the three cells. Two are unoccupied, the other holds a solitary rust-skinned Sta who seems to be asleep.

The sergeant motions to Sam and Dean to step back. “Where did you think you were?” she asks.

“Brighton,” said Dean. “I don’t understand—”

“Got a match,” the man at the terminal speaks. “Bless my stars” He looks up at the assembled black and grey uniforms before him, grinning. “We got us a pair of Sarenos.”

“Hoo.”

“My, my.”

“Let’s have a closer look, then.”

“Hush it.” They all fall silent. “Now.” The sergeant nods to the seated man. “What’s the record?”

He scratches at an eyelid and points at Dean. “Dean Winchester. Twenty-five years old.” He switches his finger to Sam. “This is Sam Winchester. Twenty-one, they’re brothers.” He lowers his hand. “Campbell House, Lawrence District, Kansas system. Booked in about ten years ago on this station on code seventeen-oh-fifty-eight.”

The sergeant twists to survey Dean. “Cut loose and run again, Sareno?”

“I don’t like to be addressed by that title,” Dean enunciates. “What have you done with Paisley?”

“Paisley?”

“The girl who was with us,” Sam responds.

“Oh, the tattoo.” The sergeant leans, half-sitting, on the counter, letting a boot dangle. “She’s been put down where her kind belong.”

“I would like to see her.”

“With no claim on her, you’ve got no legal right.”

Dean advances two steps. “Claim? I don’t need a claim. She’s my friend.” His voice carries throughout the office.

More than one of the watching officers bursts out laughing.

“Shut it.” The sergeant frowns standing again. “You’ve got enough problems, Winchester. You haven’t reached your majorities yet and you have an outstanding charge on you. We’re going to hold you both while we check your status. Now let me see your papers on that ’bot.”

“I don’t have any papers.” Dean smirks, “but just try and make her work for you.”

“He’s got you, ma’am,” from the man at the terminal. “I ain’t never seen anything like it.”

“Who has?” chimes in another.

“Winchester.” The sergeant walks over to Dean and takes his chin in a firm grip. Dean feels the pressure of each individual finger on his jaw. “Don’t aggravate me. Sure, it’s a novelty. But we’ve got techs who can take it apart.”

“They can try,” Dean taunts darkly. He jerks his head up and away from the woman’s grasp.

“And we can blast it into small fragments if you don’t program it to cooperate with us. Do you understand?”

“Dean,” Sam pleads.

Dean shuts his eyes, forcing himself to focus his breathing. “Very well. Her cooperation, nothing else and I demand access to the legal banks.”

“Terminal in your cell along with the usual amenities. You’ve got a screen.”

Dean whistles. Everyone in the office stares when Baby starts to sing, several standing up and coming forward.

“Hoo.”

“Did you hear that?”

“What is that thing?”

Baby takes these interruptions in stride and finishes gracefully as Dean whistles a final quick coda. Baby drifts down to rest on the booking desk. The men take several steps back.

“Take them in,” the sergeant orders her men. She surveys the little robot, lifts her wrist comm and speaks in it too softly for Dean to hear. The duty officer leads Sam and Dean back past the transparent wall and puts them in separate cells, Dean next to the sleeping Sta.

“Where’d you get that thing?” the officer asks as he locks them in with a few keystrokes each.

“My father’s garage,” Dean replies as he walks to the single cot that furnishes the room. “Can we get something to eat and drink?”

“Hoo,” the man sniffs, leaving. “What a push.”

A different guard a young man brings them large cartons of juice and prepackaged dinners. Dean watches in silence as six people in non-Security clothes come and carry Baby out.

He sighs and plugs in his comm-screen into the terminal. He calls up the legal banks first, but he gives up on it when he sees Sam doing the same thing in his cell, so he calls up a program on Beaconsfield system instead. Beyond the dark plastic bars of the cell he can hear the desultory conversation of the guards.

“Betting on the races?”

“Got one riding on _Jehane’s Blessing_.”

“That old wreck?”

Beaconsfield comes up on the screen, turning on a blank background. Unbroken yellow of sand flats trace vast patterns over most of its surface. Crews sink deep wells for its rich petroleum reserves and cities grow well-protected in its hot sun. Dean tries to imagine a cloudless day on Kansas, but it only serves to magnify his frustration.

“—and how they got it past the registrar with that name. It’s cursed strange.”

“Jehane’s luck, they say.”

“Keep your voice down.”

A pause.

“Still.” Lower now. “I heard Holbrook went over to him.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Last mess. Just a rumor, though.”

A short laugh, half-snort. “Not likely to shout about it on the network if it’s true, is they?”

Dean punches out of the Beaconsfield program and stands up with a long expulsion of breath. The sounds of his movement quieten the duty guards. He paces, Bobby’s words keeping time with him: ‘Waiting takes the most discipline.’

“Curse this,” he thinks aloud. He stops in the middle of the cell and comes to ready position. With a quick glance, he measures his space and he has already gauged his mood. He can see Sam mirroring him in his own cell. “Half-moon,” Dean tells him, bowing, and after the appropriate time begins the kata.

They repeat it five times before Dean feels satisfied enough to take stock of his surroundings again. The guards are both staring at them. Even the Sta, having woken at some undetermined time, watches with undisguised interest. As Dean stands catching his breath, the Sta rises to its feet and walks over to the bars.

Dean smiles tentatively, but his smile fades as the Sta leans up against the bars. He has never had trouble knowing which honorific, male or female, to use when addressing one of their kind but now he’s unsure. This Sta is unlike any he’s ever seen before.

“Sareno,” the Sta sibilant growl has a pure pitch that unnerves him. “Have you any more of those dances that I might regard?”

“Certainly, Essta—” He falters.

The Sta’s expression assumes an alarmingly human mask of self-mockery. “Having been incarcerated here on charges of itinerancy and public drunkenness, Sareno, I appreciate but do not require your politeness. Just the art, if you please.”

One of the guards wanders up. “Humor—ah—him,” he said. The other guard snickers. The Sta either doesn’t hear or ignores them.

“I appreciate your interest,” Dean bows. He catches Sam’s eye and agrees when he suggests they start from First.

Sam and Dean perform several kata along with some other techniques. The size of the cells limits the patterns they can easily execute. They can of course run all twenty-nine patterns they know on a single spot. But they are performing for an audience and some patterns require more space to be fully appreciated.

The Sta asks brief questions between kata and Dean answers them as best he can until he realizes that equally short answers are preferred. After that, he—a designation Dean doubts, although ‘she’ fits equally as poorly—excuses himself and goes back to his own cot and to lay down.

Sam and Dean stretch, cooling down. The guards have gone back to their computers. In the washing cubicle they find sonic cleaners for clothing, sonic showers and waste ports. Dean lies down on the single cot and plugs back into the terminal. After all, to make progress one has to study the opponent’s movements.

Sam offers to take legal banks. Dean pulls up the docking banks and scrolls through them: Berth Ir02, _Golden Grove_. Ir07, _Lady Penrhyn_. Ge12, _Wisstargoss_ —Sta, Ge21, _Swiftsure_. The names blur together. Ac02, _Thunderer_. Ac05 … He sees it, three places down berth Ac08, no name except Cha, just the ident number and for a moment he forgets to breathe. ‘Tagged out. Approaching system out-window. Course logged for XYZ 74.01.050 jump point: Bleak House, Station only system.’ Dean stares. They’ve gone. Hadn’t even tried to pry them loose from Security.

Why should the aliens have tried? They’d been a mere nuisance, a momentary pest. The aliens had what they wanted and they ran with it, as they had surely meant to do all along. The screen scrolls on.

“Sam, berth Ac08,” he calls over to his brother.

A moment later. “Shit, what do we do now?”

“Winchester.” The white-haired sergeant has returned and stands with a satisfied expression examining both Sam and Dean.

“You’ll be happy to hear a first-run boat came in from Kansas. Your parents sent out a tracer on you. Good thing we happened to pick you up _Sarenos_. You must’ve had quite a head start. Did you stow away?”

“What happens with us now?”

“It has to go through channels. But you’ll be sent back like you were the last time. And I suppose the _Sar_ will pay your fines.”

Sam and Dean exchange looks but say nothing.

“Rich kids,” one of the guards sneers to the other.

“My robot,” Dean asks.

“If Campbell House has papers, the ’bot’ll go back with you. I don’t mind adding, Winchester, that Tech is plenty interested in that ’bot. And they have questions for your parents—ah—I should say, the Sar and Saress.”

“She’s mine,” Dean protests but it sounds feeble even to his own ears. He’s going to lose everything. “And what about Paisley? She should go back with us.”

“Paisley?” The sergeant shakes her head. “Who is Paisley?”

“The Ridani girl.” Sam stands up and moves to the corner of his cell closest to where the sergeant stands talking to Dean.

“Oh yes,” she replies. “Your _friend_.” Her expression hardens. “Listen Winchesters, you seem to have a pretty cozy view of the Riven. An itinerant tattoo who’s not only without a pass away from her legal system, but is found with a lethal firearm of unknown design under a code forty-two-oh-twelve, not to mention in a public disturbance, isn’t getting a free trip back to whatever hole she sprang from. Do you understand?”

Now Dean stands. “I gave her that weapon.” He advances to the bars. “The blame is mine.”

“Touching and noble. The tattoo’ll get the usual.” She turns away, signaling to her aide and leaves.

Dean grabs the bars. “I demand to know—” The guards laugh and return to their computer. “I want—” He stops knowing no-one will reply.

“I thought Paisley dropped her gun,” Sam speaks softly.

“I did too,” Dean replies.

“Sareno.” The low fluid voice of the Sta draw their attention. “You claim a Ridani as a friend?”

“Is it a crime?” Dean asks bitterly staring out the transparent wall into the precinct office beyond, where the sergeant is speaking into a comm-link.

“Unusual, certainly,” replies the Sta, unoffended. “Admirable, in its way.”

“And damning for Paisley. I don’t even know what the ‘usual’ is.” His hands tighten on the bars.

“Indenture, I imagine.”

Dean lets go of the bars. “No.” He looks at him. He stands almost next to Dean. Rust-colored doesn’t quite describe his skin. Red-hued, perhaps. His mane hangs limply without the stiffness it should have. “She’s just a child. Fifteen, sixteen at the most.”

“Old enough. I believe it’s five years for itinerancy for a Ridani. More with the weapons conviction.”

“Esstavi, how do you know all this?” Sam asks.

That humanlike expression, so out of place on a Sta’s face and yet not at all on his, settles there again. “Having been brought in on similar charges and being entirely unable to pay the fines levied on me given such charges, I find myself well versed on the penalties. Of course, being of slightly more respectable origins,” his tone drips with sarcasm, “I have received only two years indenture to work off. I believe in this District they send us to Hexham.”

“But how can that be, Esstavi? You have family—” At his expression, Sam pauses. “But all Sta have—everyone knows their clans never fail them.”

For an answer he raises both hands. Dean can’t see anything to remark in them. They’re much like his own, only with a hint of scales.

“Sareno,” the Sta speaks directly to Dean again. “Perhaps your reticence does you credit.” He turns his thin-maned back to them and returns to his cot, shutting his eyes. Eyes too human for a Sta.

One of the guards sniggers and when he catches Dean’s eye, he makes an obscene gesture with his hands then looks pointedly over at the unmoving Sta.

“You make me sick.” Dean moves over to where Sam still stands. They turn their backs to the precinct, pressing shoulders together through the bars as they stand side by side, seeking comfort it the familiar presence.

“His hands. Four fingers and a thumb. Human hands.” Sam breathes so quietly that Dean only just hears the words. He stifles an urge to look across for confirmation.

After a bit they lie down to sleep. Sam wakes him when their meals are delivered. In the next cell the Sta seems not to have moved. Two new guards sit playing a game with counters on the table.

Sam whistles a tune softly, or he tries to. They’d discovered Sam was tone deaf when they’d started learning to communicate with Baby. He can understand Dean when he whistles and Baby, even when she’s singing in complex multi instrument pieces, but Sam’s inability to convey his meaning while his notes wavered all over the place had forced Baby to request he stop.

Sam repeats the short sequence again looking at Dean hopefully, then once again. Dean moves his hand to tell Sam to try once more and he joins in whistling what he thinks his brother is trying to say. Sam’s face splits in a warm smile and he nods. Dean stops and nods back. He agrees the less they discuss where they can be overheard, the better.

Sam picks up his screen and whistles (butchers) another short melody.

“Hey cut it out,” a guard yells, “you’re making my ears bleed.”

It’s enough for Dean to understand that Sam intends to look through the legal banks again. He pretends to read Beaconsfield’s information banks again, before going through his entire repertoire of kata again. Afterwards having nothing else to do, he goes into the cubicle and cleans up, again.

Coming back out, Dean finds Sam working through the patterns. He waits until he’s finish his current kata then raises his eyebrows in question. Sam shakes his head and starts the next kata.

Dean sits on his cot and scrolls through the legal banks himself. Attempting to not think about Bobby and his fate and failing. Or of Baby. Or Paisley. Failing miserably. He gets up and does kata with Sam.

A sudden influx of uniforms in the outer office distracts them. A new Security officer arrives, with the white haired woman in civilian garb in tow. Eight red-uniformed government troops detach themselves from the larger party and come back to the cells as the guards open Sam and Dean’s. Dean takes a step back, waiting to see what happens. Four troops enter each cell, surrounding them and propel them forward.

“My screen is back there,” Sam argues. The two guards behind him close in tighter one places a hand on his back. “That’s my credit, my ID. How am I supposed to—”

“Come along.” Sam casts a desperate glance back at Dean. He shrugs, his screen is also being left behind. They could try fighting, two against eight isn’t unreasonable with the training they had from Bobby. But it’s not just the eight troops moving them, it’s the whole precinct full of people.

The two Security guards watch with interest, but without sympathy. The Sta, behind his—or is it her—bars, has risen and stares after Sam and Dean with a Sta-ish and therefore unreadable expression on her—or is it his—strangely unfinished and contradictory face.

“Where’re you taking us? What’s this for? Where’s my robot?” Outside, a small vehicle waits under the awning one door open. “This is illegal.” Dean tries to sit down. They simply pick him up and shove him into the back with Sam. The door shuts.

Darkness crashes around them. Dean feels along the wall and he can hear Sam doing the same. They move around each other exploring the box they’ve been locked into. One by one and a half meters square, padded, two handholds, one on each side. The handholds prove necessary when they negotiate locks. Eventually the vehicle stops.

They’re led through an empty warehouse into a small bare room with two chairs and are left alone. There are white walls on three sides, the fourth black and smooth as obsidian. The lights of the room dim and shapes take form behind the black wall. Two women and a man sit on a higher level.

A chime sounds above, followed by the a sputtering crackle of an intercom coming to life.

“Please sit.” The disembodied voice comes across almost inhuman, but distinctly female.

“First of all,” Sam starts, “I intend to file a complaint as soon as we reach Kansas. Second, I will file a writ of action against Beaconsfield Station Security and their Technical division for the recovery of our personal property. Third, a protest to Central protesting the treatment of a young Ridani who spent a brief time in our company. Do you understand?”

Behind the wall the male figure leans over to talk to one of the women. The intercom crackles.

“You are identified as Dean Winchester, a male of twenty-five and Sam Winchester, a male of twenty-one, who have been reported missing from Kansas system.” It’s the woman speaking again. “Let me inform you. First, this report along with all trace of your recent activities here on Beaconsfield Station have been erased. Per the request of Intelligence. You no longer exist in government computers.”

The static dies away.

There is a long pause as Sam and Dean look at each other.

“What do you want?” Dean demands.

“Second, you claim ownership of a robot of unspecified and, in our records, nonexistent make. Have you any explanation for this?”

Sam and Dean say nothing.

A new voice, male this time. “The Beaconsfield Technical division doesn’t have one.”

One of the female shapes passes a comm-screen to the man.

“I found it in the Campbell House garage.” Dean’s voice echoes, falling back on itself in the small room. “That’s the truth, whether you believe me or not.”

They talk amongst themselves but their voices aren’t transmitted.

“Third, the young Ridani.”

“Paisley!”

“Did she speak to you of Jehane?”

“Jehane?” Dean holds his hands out in exasperation. “This is ridiculous. Jehane is some fairy tale, some story her people tell.”

“She did mention Jehane?”

“She told us some old legend. I think that name was in it once or twice. Can I see her? I want to put on record that the weapon she was carrying was mine. That I gave it to her.” He falters. Behind the wall they’re leaning together. Static crackles bleeding away.

“… clear evidence,” the male voice finishes. All three straighten.

“Do you know if the Ridani, Paisley, has at any time been linked with the Jehanish insurrection?”

“I’ve never heard of any Jehanish anything, but I’m beginning to think that—” He stops, remembering, for once, prudence.

“Would you like to complete that statement?”

“No.”

Static arcs in a high, faint pattern above them. Dean circles the room four times before the intercom crackles back to life. The three questioners draw apart and stand. “We have no further questions.”

“But I have!” Sam calls out. The wall is already dull and as the lights came up it reverts to its original obsidian sheen. “I have!” He slams the side of his fist into the black surface.

The eight guards file in and the brothers leave with them. Dean can’t even imagine where they might be going now. But it’s to a lock and then, of course, onto a ship. Having presumably condemned Paisley, lost Bobby and Baby they’re being sent back to Campbell House.

Dean is pushed into a room—he tries not to think “cell”—by himself. There’s food and drink waiting for him along with a washing cubicle. He eats, drinks, washes and is unaware of any ungrappling. So when the first window comes, it takes him entirely unaware.

 

> _Fire. A tracery half-broken. The wind fans it. The building collapses—roaring; weight. Trapping him in darkness._

And come out.

He wipes a single tear from his cheek and washes his face. He does kata, basics, stands for long periods in his deepest stances. In such a stance, kiba-dachi, centered physically at least, he feels the ship go through.

 

> _Night. Utterly dark. The sightless must find a path. Wrists crossed. Long sweeps, half-moon, forge the ground. Light begins to rise._

And come out.

He’s still deep in the stance and decides as his final test he might as well stay in it until the ship docks at Kansas Station. It gives him something to concentrate on while he waits.

Because of it he’s completely surprised and not entirely unprepared when they go through again.

 

> _The angle of the left knee. Tendons. A slight shift. Vector. Each angle presupposes the next. Each prepares the other._

And come out.

He’s so amazed by his sudden understanding of how to correct his horse stance that he sits down. It is so simple, so obvious.

It’s two windows to Kansas. Where, by the Void, are they going? Thinking back on everything that has happened, Dean realizes his original assumption they—whoever they are, the government, presumably—would simply return him and Sam to Kansas and deposit them by Campbell House seems absurd, even naïve. The last ship had gotten to Beaconsfield in one impossible jump. They can be anywhere.

There’s a bed recess in one wall. He lies down in it and sleeps. He’d been told once that no human can sleep through a window. On other occasions he’s been told one merely has strange dreams. It seems to Dean when he wakes that he’s had strange dreams, but how many and how strange, he can’t remember. He stretches, does a few exercises, eats and drinks and washes. This ship could be going anywhere even as far as Central. He thinks of Baby’s star map and smiles.

The ship goes through.

 

> _The guardian of the south: the spirit of power released. But to the west: the spirit of power in reserve._

And comes out.

He’s still smiling of course, because it is an instant’s vision, an instant’s realization, an instant, going through. For the first time, he understands he will have to wait out events until he can see the pattern they are taking and find his own part in it.

A subtle change in the floor and air signal docking. In time, the door of his room slides open and six black and grey uniformed officers escort him out. They pull him directly from the lock into a prison car. After a time, the door opens and Sam is shoved inside with him. The door closes and the car starts moving. Disorientation through the locks tell them, as Dean has suspected, they are on a station. When the door swings open they emerge with as much dignity as they can muster.

More guards are waiting for them when they exit. Four surround Sam and four form around Dean. They are led in different directions. Dean can hear Sam protesting and he’s about to join in, not wanting to be split up, however Dean hears one of Sam’s guards tell him that they’re going to be questioned separately and will be reunited afterwards.

Dean walks sedately down a blank hallway with his guards. No-one speaks. He hopes that by being cooperative now he’ll be returned to Sam as soon as possible. The corridor dead-ends in a pair of double doors that open from inside. None of the guards follow him in.

Dean’s alone in the small chamber. A hollow pop alerts him and in the far wall a seam appears and opens. Dean shrugs to himself and walks through it, the doors closing behind him. In the next room, a single hard molded plastic chair faces eight chairs padded with soft fabric. Dean allows himself the barest of sighs and sits in the hard chair. A few minutes pass. The hollow pop sounds again and a second door materializes. Dean stands, but before he can take his first step, four people walk into the room and the doorway vanishes behind them.

He remains standing, out of astonishment. There are three men and a woman. She’s dressed in the most unusual clothing he’s ever seen. Her dress seems to be a single bolt of rich green cloth draping around her, rustling as she moves. Her forehead is adorned with a red circle, like a drop of blood, between and slightly above her eyebrows.

They study him with equal intensity as they arrange themselves in four of the comfortable chairs. However strange they look, at least they’re human and not the mysterious alien Kapellans, whose motives he can’t hope to fathom.

One of the men lifts a hand to his mouth and coughs behind it. Dean is attracted to him instantly, his messy hair looking like he just rolled out of bed is blue. But it’s his blue eyes that draw Dean in. The longer he looks, the more blue they seem, like they’re not just one shade of blue but made up of flecks of every shade of blue that ever existed.

The woman speaks. “You call yourself Dean Winchester. You claim residence at System Mark fifty-three point twenty-four-oh-eight, called Kansas. This is correct?” It’s Standard, but strangely altered and heavily accented.

“Ah yeah,” Dean answers slowly. “Can I ask questions?”

The woman looks at the blue-haired man. He speaks a few words Dean can’t understand, his voice deep and rough, like he gargled with gravel when he woke up. She turns back to Dean. “You may ask, in sequence, your questions.” Her tone is neutral.

Dean sits back in his chair. “I want to know where we are and why we’ve been brought here. Who do you represent? What’s been done with our companions? Both the robot and the Ridani girl. When we’ll be allowed due legal process, which I shouldn’t need to remind you is our right as a citizens of the Riven?”

She answers. “It is not unreasonable that you know your location. We are currently at System Mark fifty-one point seventy-two-oh-thirty-six, also called Nevermore Station. We have not heard of any Ridani child. Now, of course, you will answer our questions.”

“Nevermore!” Dean exclaims. It lies off the main routes at the edge of navigable space, populated by Cirriath and the usual Ridani enclave. It is named for the number of ships lost leaving it, trying perhaps to go out on Paisley’s haunted way. “Why in the Void did you bring us to Nevermore?”

“Can’t imagine,” mutters the second man, his cheeks flushing pink with everyone’s attention. Dean pays attention to him for the first time, noting he appears to be considerably shorter than everyone else in the room.

“As you must know, we want to know the extent of your involvement with Bobby Singer, also known as,” her voice takes on the litany of the oft-repeated, “Mike Kayser, Lou Dunbar, Pete Lovell, Frank Castle, Tom Willis—” Blue-hair chuckles. The woman breaks off, frowning at him in annoyance. “You know well enough what we ask you,” she finishes, turning back to Dean.

“No, I don’t.”

“You deny involvement with him?” asks the woman.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Dean maintains.

“And of course you have no knowledge of his past activities or his current plans?” This from the short man, his face openly skeptical. “Have no connection with this business whatsoever?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They exchange glances. Blue-hair yawns and rubs at some imagined blight on one tanned cheek. His hand moves with a kind of awkward grace that shouldn’t be sexy and yet Dean finds himself captured by the movement.

“And that, I suppose,” the woman’s voice sharpens with irritation, “is why you have a model nineteen-sixty-five Chevrolet?”

Dean shifts his attention quickly back to the woman. “A what?”

The woman converses in the foreign language with the blue-haired man. With a final comment, the woman dispatches the third man. He’s an obvious flunky, dressed in a black and grey security uniform. The door opens, he disappears through it, returning holding a hand-sized box. Behind him in a metal harness floats Baby.

Dean stands immediately, whistling her name.

Baby responds in full chorus. _Dean, you are unharmed?_

“That’s enough.” Short-guy breaks in on Dean’s whistled reply. “It’s proof enough for me,” he states to the woman. She frowns and speaks in the incomprehensible tongue to Blue-hair.

 _Can you understand?_ whistles Dean.

 _Certainly. The lady has stated that their party should have brought a Chevrolet model expert with them. The gentleman responded that one is unlikely to expect working models of such design in an area—_ Her song cuts off abruptly and she drifts down to settle on the floor.

“What have you done?” Dean starts forward, but the security officer moves in his way.

“The model is unharmed,” declares the woman in her neutral tone. “We were forced to switch off its melodic circuits. I am sure you see the necessity.” She nods and the security officer presses a button; Baby lifts about a meter from the floor and together they leave the room. “You will,” adds the woman more forcefully, “receive the model back after you have cooperated with us.”

Blue-hair catches Dean’s eye and, like a conspirator forced for the moment to play the opposite side, winks at him. Dean could swear just for a moment his eyes glowed blue. Not like the light’s caught his eyes, but like his eyes have been lit from within.

  
  
  


  


“Has that convinced you,” continues the woman, “that we have seen through your deception?”

Dean returns to the hard chair. “I don’t know what my deception is supposed to be. I found the robot in my father’s garage.” It seems wiser to ignore Blue-hair for the moment and concentrate on the woman.

Short-guy laughs. “And fish can fly,” he mocks. He reaches for the comm-screen he wears on his belt, fingers skipping across its surface, before he moves the short distance to hold it before Dean. “Next you’ll tell us you don’t recognize this man.”

Dean can hear his breath hitch and he hopes he has better control of his face. It’s Bobby, looking younger, with hair somewhat longer. It’s obviously him and there on his chest rests a medallion like the ones he’s given Sam and Dean.

Dean stares confused, yet not totally surprised. He realizes finally they are all examining him. He uncurls his fingers and lays his hands on his thighs.

“You’re not going to deny it?” Short-guy smiles like he’s trapped them.

Dean says nothing.

“This is a waste of time,” Blue-hair speaks for the first time in accented but perfectly understandable Standard. “These methods never work.”

“You would know,” the woman’s voice takes on an edge. Her dark eyes fix on Dean, unwavering. “I do not care what methods I have to use to get the truth. That choice is yours. Do you understand?”

“My House has already sent out tracers on us,” Dean states, his voice remarkably level. “They’ll catch up with you eventually.”

The woman sighs long deep and exasperated. She stands and the two men stand with her. “I see you do not understand, or else you refuse to.” She has filled her voice with dismay. “You do not exist on your government’s computers any more. You cannot be traced.”

She steps forward with speed most startling for its abruptness and grasps the chains of Dean’s necklaces, flicking them out with a finely tuned twist of the wrist. The grotesque mask that Sam bought him from a random shop on Beaconsfield ten years ago and the medallion from Bobby settle on the black cloth of Dean’s shirt. “Do not attempt denial.” She taps the medallion with one finger nail. “We will leave you to think about its consequences.”

She leaves, the two men following her through the door. Blue-hair is last through the door and pauses to look back, his eyes considering and perhaps amused. Dean can’t help but stare back at him, caught at that moment by a fascination with his exotic attractiveness which causes him to forget briefly his and Sam’s circumstances. Dean feels a smile beginning to form.

Then someone speaks impatiently beyond the door and he too is gone.

“What the hell Dean?” he mutters to himself, sitting down. This is no time to be admiring one’s enemies even if Blue-hair is gorgeous and has the most bewitching eyes Dean has ever seen.

Dean can’t imagine where these people have come from. There is an oddity to them. Like there’s no point of comparison between his experience of life and theirs. And Bobby? Christian’s bounty hunters seem a minor irritation in retrospect.

Behind him there’s movement. Dean twists, quickly slipping the necklaces underneath his clothes. A door is opening, seeming to peel back from the wall. Through it, an unintelligible voice and a series of tones sound and Baby appears unharnessed, coming through the door. Dean stands, but the doorway is sealing back into place. Intercom traffic sounds beyond it: “Code red sector eleven Imp, all security assemble—” The door shuts. Baby descends to float level with his knees.

_Baby! Can you get us out of here?_

_Negative. Screens present. I regret my inability, but you certainly understand that against such devices attuned to my circuits, I cannot resist._

_Who are these people? Are they from Central?_

_Information insufficient on Central. Harness activated by recent technician-originated point of origin. New construct. Therefore, I deduce similar origins for latest interrogators._

_Do you mean that they came from the place you originally came from?_

_Affirmative._

“Then Bobby must be…” Dean trails off, his eyes focusing on one of the chairs whose fabric subtly reminds him of the curtains in Bobby’s study. _Why did they return you to me?_

Her first response is more tone than answer. Baby drifts closer to Dean and continues _Unclear. Disturbance on Station. Some debate over my disposal, followed by a call over communications and an unbuckling of harness and swift preparations for departure. That is all I witnessed._

The lights go out and for three breaths the room remains dark. They come back on with a flash of brilliance but almost simultaneously, as if the two are connected, Dean feels a sharp lurch in his stomach. He stumbles to one side, tripping over his own feet, grabbing for the chair back but missing. A second lurch yanks him back into the chair. Baby has shifted across the room. Lights blinking, she returns.

“Damn,” Dean exclaims. He keeps his hold on the chair’s back. The lights go off again, staying off much longer. Long enough for Baby to sing through _‘We Can Make The Morning’_. They come back up in slow stages, accompanied by a rhythmic pounding and a deep extended growl, like an engine heard through a tube.

A doorway peels open. Dean throws himself into a half-crouch behind the chair. A man strolls in, gun held easily in one hand. Not just any man, but a tattoo. Purple and yellow and orange swirls in a joyous riot over his skin. He wears ordinary brown overalls. His arms are bare. Spotting Dean he stops, his gun held steady, but not pointed at Dean.

“Here you be.” His face is open cheerful.

“Who are you?” Dean asks, staying down.

“I be called Calico.” He seems to find this entertaining and smiles. “But I be here to release you.”

Baby floats up behind Dean, attracting the man’s astute eye. “I don’t understand,” Dean counters. “Why are you releasing me?”

His smile broadens. “But it be ya simple,” he says. “Jehane hae come. I mun take you to him.”

Now Dean stands up. “Who is Jehane?” he demands.

A voice stutters to life at Calico’s wrist. He lifts it to his ear, listening to whatever is being said then lowers his arm again. “Be you comin?” he asks.

Dean glances at Baby. The robot blinks her four amber lights. “I think I be,” he speaks, half-resigned, and he follows Calico out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **We Can Make the Morning** by _Elvis Presley_.


	8. Chapter 8

Calico leads Dean out pass the double doors. The grey featureless walls drain the color from Calico’s tattoos. On his bare feet, a glow from the floor reveals curlicues chasing themselves in orange and yellow around his toes.

“Where are we going?” Dean questions.

“To safety.” Calico flashes him a quick, bright smile.

“Where’s Sam? My brother, we arrived together?” Dean asks.

He shakes his head. “I be told to get you. He be safe where he is.” It doesn’t matter how much Dean presses, Calico either doesn’t know or won’t tell him anything more about Sam.

The blank hallways recede in a shallow curve due to the arc of the station. They really haven’t gone far when Calico stops them at a single doorway outlined on the wall. He lays a hand on the comm-panel next to it and it soundlessly slides open.

Inside is a worker’s office and living space all in two tiny rooms. The outer room holds tools, the inner room just large enough for bed and terminal. The door shuts behind them. Calico clips off the gun and hides it under a plastic bucket. Waving Dean into the second room, he grandly offers him a seat on the bed.

“I be ya janitor here,” he states as Dean arranges himself, Baby hovering near the ceiling above. “So you be sure wondering why I be here instead o’ with ya rest o’ my people.”

His mischievous look prompts Dean to smile. “I’d wondered why you’ve got the run of the place, after what I’ve seen of Security’s treatment of Ridanis.” Still bitter, he tells Calico of Paisley.

His lack of surprise is shocking in its own right. “Well enough it be for them,” he comments when Dean finishes the story, “but a sore hard time I do see for ya, laddie.”

“And there’s nothing we can do,” Dean mutters, grimacing, afraid his anger is already turning into resignation.

“Perhaps. Perhaps.” Around the eyes, through the wild design, Dean can now discern deep lines, aging hidden from the world by color. He glances down at Calico’s hands; they show wrinkles, lines under lines. “But ya new time be comin’, min—” Here he pauses.

“Winchester,” Dean supplies. “Dean Winchester.”

“Ah.” Calico slides sideways, passing him, and sits down before the terminal. “I did see them bring ya prisoner in, though I didna know it be you, min Winchester. Ya place here, do you see.” He waves his hand to encompass the hall and rooms they’ve just come through. “It be private to ya govinment, for ya special folk, as they feel true be ya dangerous.”

Dean can’t help but laugh. “Dangerous? What do they do with them?”

He turns in his seat to frown at Dean. “It be not for laughing, min. Many bad things. Along ya hall, all along, be folk who never hae seen their homes for years and more, that were brought here ya long ago.”

“But their families—” Dean breaks off. He’s been told twice now that he and Sam no longer exist in government banks.

Calico turns back to the terminal. “And what better choice than ya old tattoo to clean and mend ya place. Poor enough and with kin enough to keep, to hold ya mouth tight closed. But ya short time back, ya new folk come in, openlike and they be made much welcome. They be looking for some thing or maybe some folk. Strange they be, dressed sore funny. One, by Dancer, e’en had blue hair.” Calico turns where he’s sitting on the bed and focuses a pair of jewel blue eyes on Dean.

“They’re the ones who talked to me. I didn’t know what they wanted, except—” Except Bobby. “Do you know,” Dean continues, pressing on passed that particular point, “they don’t come from here? From the Riven, I mean.”

Calico’s eyes don’t show any sign of disbelief. “I suspicioned much like,” he says and looks pointedly at Baby. “That one be sore strange, likewise.”

“She’s old,” Dean reveals. “A long time ago, like our ancestors, she came from over ya way.”

“Ah. You know ya story.”

“A little bit of it. But those people the ones who questioned me. They must’ve come over the way recently, just days or months ago. From…” He opens his hands. “I don’t know where from.”

“Jehane knows,” Calico tells him.

The terminal beeps and he turns back to face it as information prints out on the screen. Dean leans over and reads for himself.

**Nevermore Station. Condition: under attack. Status: indeterminate.**  
**Usher Hub: Insurrection in progress; support from at least three cleared merchant vessels. Security forces in need of reinforcement.**  
**Pendulum Hub: Clean, clear, no signs of incursion. Station citizens restless but still under control.**  
**Raven Hub: Unauthorized docking: serious displacement of station axis — red red red — stabilization.**  
**Core: Axis realignment stable. No threat to life systems.**  
**Imp Hub: All communication cut off. Security personnel missing or dead.**

“Ah.” Calico smiles. “That be ya Ridani sector.”

“But this is a classified channel!” Dean leans in even more to stare at the screen. “What’s going on?”

“Jehane hae come.”

“He come, he come,” murmurs Dean, trying to remember Paisley’s song. “To lead us far, to home, to home.” He glances down to see Calico’s face full of shock. “Is that right?”

“Ya lassie hae trusted you, or been in kinnas to you,” he declares.

“We were locked in a cell together.”

“Indeed.” Calico punches more codes into the computer.

Dean sits quietly, watching the old man’s face. It’s a kindly one, but much lined with secrets and knowledge endured from necessity, not choice. He smiles as a new message scrolls on the screen, a smile that brightens the whole room.

“We mun go,” he tells Dean. “Ya way be clear. This sector be much deserted in any case, as it be sore off limits but to ya highest level folk. So it were but little task to seal it off.”

“But I still don’t understand what’s happening. Who’s rebelling?”

“Jehane hae come,” he repeats patiently. “You hae been given ya story by ya lassie.”

“But Jehane…” Dean raises a hand hopelessly and glances up at Baby. He finds it impossible to offend this old man by telling him that Jehane is merely a legend. After all the prejudice he’s seen, he can’t help but feel that someone, however shadowy, should champion their cause. “So people here have been waiting? Was it planned, this revolt?”

“Sure,” he says. “All were held ready for when he chose ya time to arrive. And he hae asked special to see ya prisoners that ya far folk hae had brought in. That be you, min Winchester. And ya time be now.”

Dean and Baby follow him into the office and wait while he slips out to check the corridor. Dean lifts the plastic bucket. The gun lies there. He picks it up and without further thought tucks it into the back of his pants, pulling his shirt out to conceal it. Calico reappears, beckoning.

Just around the next curve, Calico fingers a door panel and leads them into a spacious office populated by desks and counters. They stand alone in the gloom. A lit terminal scrolls with unreadable data, oblivious to the vacant chair before it.

“Where is everyone?” Dean whispers.

“It be ya night cycle,” he informs Dean, his normal voice loud in the empty room. “But we did clear out all o’ ya sector, except them as _he_ were to see.”

They weave through more offices, ending in a small room with a raised dais and four chairs. The fourth wall, the one the chairs face, is transparent. Beyond, in a chamber exactly like the one he and Sam had been interrogated in on Beaconsfield, sit the three foreigners he’d just been speaking with. Short-guy, Blue-hair and the woman. The other guy is missing, but Dean thought he was a loaned lackey.

“Don’t be scared,” Calico says. “They canna see you.”

“But I was… I could see…”

“Only if ya certain button be pushed. They see no but ya black wall.” Calico grins, “you might recollect that?”

“I do.” Dean walks up to the wall. “If they’re prisoners there, ain’t I just as much a prisoner here?”

“Do but sit quiet. You shall learn enough and be safe more than you been back in ya other place. True enough?”

“I can only take your word,” Dean regards him gravely.

With a hand leathery from age and work Calico touches his forehead like a benediction and leaves. The lock light winks red on the comm-panel. As Dean steps forward to test it, Baby sings.

_Do you desire my translation of the conversation beyond?_

Listening, Dean realizes he can hear the three people talking. They seem completely unaware of his and Baby’s presence. Their clothes are startling in the drab room. The teal of Short-guy’s shirt, the lustrous swag of green draped around the woman and while Blue-hair’s clothes are a plain dark colored suit with white shirt, both his royal blue tie and his smoky blue hair are stunning. He rises from the chair he’s sitting in, one pink finger lifting to brush at a cheek and Dean realizes Short-guy has been speaking in Standard.

“…but what else could we expect from a cyro colonization? Their computer systems are laughable! They’ve slipped badly from what they must’ve brought with them. And having to leave Rayonne on the ship because of their barbaric prejudices.”

“That was not altogether unexpected,” replies the woman.

Short-guy stands, his clothing moves, highlighting the roundness of his body, so different from the woman’s slender frame or the muscular thickness of Blue-hair. “Your sociologists have blessed us again. Unfortunately they didn’t predict this political disagreement or the primitive methods being used to solve it.”

The woman shrugs and looks away from him. “This is pointless quibbling, Metatron,” she says.

The blue-haired man is running a hand along the wall that separates him from Dean. Like he can feel Dean’s presence by touch alone, he pauses right where Dean stands. When he speaks, his voice is as deep as Dean remembers. He uses the other language.

_He says that this latest expedition was perhaps a fool’s errand in whatsoever case, as the old man is now dead._

“Dead?” Dean repeats. He can’t mean Bobby.

Metatron turns to glare at Blue-hair. “That may be true enough, Castiel, but dismantling his terrorist network is another matter, especially now that he is no longer around to protect them. And his sister still lives.”

Castiel waves a hand in dismissal.

“He is negligible.” The woman fixes her severe gaze on Metatron. “But his saboteur’s matrix must be eradicated once for all.”

“Tell him that Dumah,” Metatron spits sourly.

A sister. Bobby was sending him and Sam to his sister. That he’s involved in some dangerous mystery is clear now; perhaps has been all along had Dean cared to read the signs. That they think he and Sam are equally involved, he has to admit, is unsurprising at this point.

What if Bobby is dead?

“I will not believe it,” Dean says aloud.

_What will you not believe Dean?_ sings Baby.

Dean shakes his head.

In the other room, the comm-panel beeps and the door slides open. The woman, Dumah stands. Both the men turn to face the opening. Six white-uniformed soldiers stride in. Two are tattoos, but they remain set apart from the others. The soldiers form a column on either side of the doorway, raising left hands to right shoulders. A woman enters. Brisk, tight-lipped, she examines her three prisoners with uncompromising energy.

“Sit down,” she orders in ringing tones. Her eyes drift for an infinitesimal second to the wall behind which Dean and Baby watch. None of the three sit down.

“By what authority have you detained us?” demands Dumah, moving forward to face the new arrival. “We are here on safe-conduct from your government.”

“Not _my_ government,” replies the woman. Thick hands, strong by their look, give a swift tug on her plain white jacket. She looks immaculate. “Sit down.”

Metatron’s complexion turns a blotchy red. “This is intolerable!”

“Marv.” Castiel’s bored tone cuts through the man’s ire. “We can’t fight them all. Much as I’m sure,” he adds with a sardonic smile, “you would like to.” He settles himself in one of the chairs, attention partly on the soldier, partly on the wall.

The movement distracts the soldier from Metatron’s anger while Metatron, breathing unevenly, his muscles tense under his teal shirt, sits down heavily in a chair. He casts a glance at Castiel that could be annoyance or gratitude.

“By what authority?” Dumah repeats her question.

“Sit, bitch.” The soldier in charge orders. A slight movement of her hand and the six guards fan out into the room; four more enter behind them.

Dumah doesn’t move.

“I said sit.” The dark woman gives a hard shove to Dumah’s shoulders.

Dumah falls backward, her knees hit the chair and she sits messily, her beautifully draped dress slipping so that she has to grab at it. But she has, Dean notes, controlled her anger.

Castiel directs something to Metatron, who looks ready to rise, but whatever it he says causes Metatron to settle back into his seat with a slight grin.

_He assures his companion that they are indeed amongst the uncivilized,_ translates Baby.

“Huh.” The woman studies her three prisoners with disgust. “You may,” she adds with the greatest of generosity, “address me as First Comrade.” A stifled sound from Castiel causes her to shift her eyes slowly from the tips of his black boots to the top of his unruly blue hair. He smiles serenely back at her. “Such as you,” she finishes, “unaware of the distinction afforded me by the title, may also address me as Kuan-yin.”

As if he can’t help himself, Castiel begins to laugh.

Kuan-yin draws her gun and points it at him.

“Oh dear.” He stops laughing, but Dean can’t help but admire the lack of concern with which he regards the gun. “You must tell me, what is your full name?”

“None of your business,” she snaps, gun still raised.

“You have not yet told us by whose authority you hold us here,” Dumah speaks in her most neutral voice.

Kuan-yin holsters the gun. The white uniform sets off her brown skin and she sweeps all three with a belligerent look. “By Jehanish authority. The Jehanish rebellion is now in control of Nevermore Station. We have ordered all ships to surrender to our authority or be blown up in their docks.”

“I see,” Dumah expresses calmly. “What is this ‘Jehanish’ authority?”

A soft beep stirs the air behind Dean, followed by an indrawn sigh. The door slides open. Dean sees Calico’s face, but he retreats beyond Dean’s view and a man enters the room.

He has golden hair. Not just blond or yellow but gold like it’s gilded with the ore itself. He moves with the grace of the wind, filling space as though he’s meant by the laws of the universe to be there. Entering, becoming the room, he sees Dean first and offers him an apologetic smile. It says, ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, for causing you any inconvenience.’ At the same time, he beckons Dean to approach and Dean finds that he simply walks over and hates himself for doing so.

“Who are you?” Dean can’t help but ask. He feels like his will has left him and gone to live with this man.

The man considers Dean first for a long moment, then turns his attention to Baby, clearly puzzled, half-amazed, but pleased. He walks to the window and he has that immediately definable posture that marks him as a master of whatever art he’s chosen. His gaze as he studies the scene below is, if not benign, then effortlessly all-encompassing. Finally, having drunk his fill, he returns his eyes to Dean. The man’s eyes are mild, a deep rooted green, but piercing. His voice is, of course, honey-smooth, as golden as the rest of him.

“I am Jehane,” he says. “But you may call me Alexander.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Of course,” Dean agrees without thinking.

Alexander’s expression doesn’t change. “This then,” he remarks, returning his attention to Baby, “is the special, or shall we say ‘gifted’, robot you…” his pause is a question “own?”

“Not quite,” Dean answers.

Alexander smiles like they’re sharing a secret. “Possess the loyalty of?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He shifts to look down into the other room, lifting his wrist communicator to his mouth. Whatever he says is too quiet for Dean hear, but Kuan-yin gives the barest twitch and her face clears to an expression of polite disinterest.

“You’re under arrest,” she informs her three prisoners, “under suspicion of collusion with the illegal government at Central. You’ll be allowed to clear yourself of suspicion.”

Metatron shifts impatiently in his chair. “If we answer the right questions?”

“There’ll be questions.”

“And if we cannot answer them? Or if we refuse to cooperate?” Dumah smooths out her dress with a few unhurried strokes.

“Then you’ll deal with the consequences.” Kuan-yin smiles viciously.

Castiel raises a hand and runs it through his hair. “Perhaps you have not yet realized,” he enunciates, “that a far more dangerous authority than your government at Central will retaliate for any harm done to us or to our ship.” His eyes linger on the wall like he hasn’t the energy to move them to Kuan-yin.

“Yes,” breaths Jehane leaning forward with more interest.

“You need to watch that one,” Dean tells him without meaning to.

Jehane’s focus moves fully to Dean. “Why is that?” and Dean can tell he already knows the answer, but he wants to know if Dean does.

“He’s not afraid.” Dean looks down to where Dumah is speaking to Castiel in their other language. “It’s a game to him.” Dean wishes Castiel was looking at him still, like his attention will stop Dean from talking to Jehane. “He simply doesn’t care,” Dean adds compulsively.

“Perceptive,” Alexander’s voice contains a wealth of compliments in that single word. He returns his attention to the room.

“My darling Dumah,” Castiel replies in Standard. “We may as well toss our cards on the table.”

“Which cards?” Metatron’s voice is sharp.

Castiel shrugs. “As many as my feeble brain can recall.”

Dumah looks at Metatron. The stare conveys an order Metatron clearly doesn’t want to obey, but he complies. His frown displays itself as much in his posture as his face.

Beside Dean, Alexander stands silent, his whole presence surrounding Dean. Below them, Dean watches as Dumah and Metatron both give over their wills to Castiel, trusting in him.

Dean recognizes it for the surrender it is, because he feels the same unspoken demand from Jehane. He concentrates on the unfolding scene below.

“Go on,” orders Kuan-yin.

Castiel remains silent for a space of five breaths. Everyone watches him. “Ah,” he speaks like he’s recalling an important fact. “Jehane.” He smiles. “‘It is customary for there to be modesty about him.’”

“What does that mean?” demands Kuan-yin.

“Well, our ship isn’t docked to this station, it’s in free orbit. And by itself, our ship has enough firepower to, shall we say, ‘render this station inoperable and uninhabitable’. Much as we admire your military prowess in so swiftly taking control of Nevermore, you have no chance against our superior firepower.”

“That may be true,” Kuan-yin threatens, “but you’d die as well.”

“Ah, death.” Castiel examines the ceiling. “Sweet bedfellow. We’re simple pawns and the shuttle is a mere trifle. But,” he smiles warmly at the grim-faced Kuan-yin, “we’re not enemies. We seek a handful of individuals who have committed a few violent crimes. When we have them all, we will go quietly I assure you.”

“Where will you go?” Kuan-yin enquiries.

In the silence made by Castiel adjusting his sleeves, Dean lifts his head to find Jehane staring at him with intense interest. It’s utterly unnerving. “Back,” Dean answers his unspoken question. “They’ll go back. Over the way.”

“To the lost home worlds,” Jehane murmurs, his eyes are the cold enticing glitter of emeralds. “You’re one of the ones they came to find.”

“No,” Dean quickly corrects. “I’m not. They just think we are. It’s a mistake.”

“No need to fear me.” Alexander’s voice is soft. “We can help each other.”

Privately Dean thinks he’d be crazy not to fear him. Fearing Jehane’s demonstrated power to usurp his free will seems like the most logical thing in the world right now. With great effort, Dean forces himself to turn away and look down into the room.

Kuan-yin is speaking. “You’ve had enough time to think.”

“My bane,” Castiel replies with an exaggerated sigh. “Too much time to think.”

Metatron stifles a suspicious noise, like he’s enjoying himself and trying not to laugh.

Dumah’s face remains impassive.

“But!” Castiel raises one hand in a patrician’s gesture. “Don’t be hasty. You call your region of space the Riven, I believe. We’re from beyond it. We are,” he stands and makes an awkward yet graceful bow to Kuan-yin, “your ancestors.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jehane’s voice has gone hard. He speaks quietly into his wrist band, denying Dean knowledge of his words.

Kuan-yin gestures to the guards still standing at attention by the door. “These men will escort you back to your cell,” she smirks.

Castiel turns and addresses the black wall. “Have I miscalculated?” he asks.

“Not entirely,” Jehane answers in a low voice, even though he can’t be heard by the prisoners. “But close enough.” He watches as the entire party leaves the room.

‘A handful of individuals for a few violent crimes.’ That phrase runs round and round in circles in Dean’s mind. Does that mean Bobby is a criminal? Have they already killed him? Are they cleaning up his associates? Are Sam and himself amongst them?

“Sam and Dean Winchester.” Alexander’s voice, not at all loud, permeates the room. He’s regarding Dean with the same expression the Sar uses when he’s examining the first fruits of a new vein: Will this be worthwhile to mine? Will it prove valuable?

“How did you take Nevermore?” Dean asks abruptly.

“Never reveal your deepest secrets, my child,” Jehane speaks like he’s imparting the greatest of wisdoms, “except to your heir, when you’re on your deathbed.” He sits, a slow curling of his body.

His uniform, for it’s a close copy of the white ones the guards and Kuan-yin were wearing, is a deep brown that sets off his golden hair and green eyes. It suggests that agricultural world, that paradise, that a child like Paisley must yearn for.

“But,” he adds, “with the entire Ridani population behind me as well as the many, many discontented who have at last chosen to act, at an isolated station, it proves easy enough to dismantle Central’s authority and create a true people’s government.

“What do the Cirriath say about this?”

“They have their own business, and in any case they live so very separate from us. As long as their lives and tasks continue uninterrupted they’ve no quarrel with me.”

“And the Sta?”

“The Sta have their own reasons to be displeased with the encroachments Central has made on their traditions, freedoms and territories. As Central has on all of ours. You must know this?”

“I don’t know,” Dean denies, but he thinks of Benny and his surprising tirade against the new trade laws.

“But of course,” Jehane rises. “What would you know of it?”

Dean realizes Jehane has misunderstood his ignorance for that of a foreigner rather than of the privileged. “What are you going to do,” he asks quickly forestalling further questions, “with your rebellion if you reach Central?”

Jehane pauses. “Institute the people’s government.” He’s good and it is an obvious spiel but he’s speaking with such passion and sincerity that Dean wants to believe him. “Return to the citizens of the Riven their freedoms and rights.” His smile is like a beacon light to the lost in Kansas’ storms, promising security and shelter. “Of course.”

Dean really wants to believe, but some instinct honed through years of martial arts keeps him sparring. “How can you possibly take Central?”

“There are already comrades working for us on Central. Workers of all persuasions, ready to act. Including a talented young writer full of passion, spreading the truth, preparing the way with her sermons.”

“If you win, will you take the Ridanis back, over the way?” Dean continues questioning. Baby drifts down and nudges gently at his back. He lays a hand on her gleaming surface, finding her touch reassuring.

Alexander’s laugh is charming. “You have heard _ya_ story I see. Of course the Ridani need to be reintegrated as citizens first. As equal citizens of the Riven.” He takes two steps toward Dean.

“Is Jehane your real name?” Dean takes a step back, another to the side creating space between them.

“It’s my essence.” Another step and Dean retreats pushing Baby with him. “You know what I want Dean. Coordinates, navigation charts, vectors. I need that route.” Two more steps toward him.

Dean steps back maintaining the distance separating them. “Ask your prisoners. They even have a ship. I can’t help you. _I don’t know._ ”

Alexander’s voice is full of pain, his face expresses how bewildered he feels. “Why don’t you want to help me? _I_ want to help you.” Two more steps. “They only hunt you. You’re safe with me.”

No I’m not, Dean thinks to himself. He raises a cautionary hand toward Jehane to hold him off. Baby stops abruptly up against the wall. Dean’s allowed himself to be cornered. He silently curses himself for not paying more attention. “I don’t know anything!”

“Do you really expect me to believe that? We ran your name Dean. You don’t exist in government records.” Jehane waves a hand towards Baby. “You control a completely foreign robot. This charade is useless.”

“We were wiped from the computers. _Your_ people rescued me.” Dean maintains eye contact keeping Alexander’s attention high on himself.

Jehane smiles clearly disbelieving him and takes another step toward Dean. “Will you cooperate?” Gracious, but the unspoken ‘or’ is clearly there.

Dean reaches behind himself for the gun. “No closer or I’ll shoot.” He points it at Jehane.

“A challenge,” he says lightly. “But will you?” With utter confidence he another step towards Dean his smile doesn’t waiver.

Dean shoots him.

It’s more concussion than noise, more instinct than will. Alexander staggers backwards, regains his balance, slowly lifts his right hand to his left shoulder. Blood filters through the brown cloth, a damp spreading patch.

“I’m sorry,” Dean tells him in a calm voice, holding the gun steady. “But I told you I would.”

Alexander tastes the blood on his fingertips, considering its flavor. His left arm dangles uselessly at his side. “You keep your word,” Jehane replies at last.

“I do.”

“I see I underestimated you. You understand this interview must continue at a later time, you still possess information that I require. You’ll remain in custody until then.” He smiles, tempering the news of Dean’s continuing imprisonment. He murmurs into his wrist band.

The door slides open with the gasp from Calico. “Min Winchester!” he cries his betrayal when he sees the wound.

Kuan-yin rushes into the room, her guards following. “You little animal!” She charges Dean, totally disregarding the gun, and shoves Dean back into the wall so hard his head strikes the hard surface with a bang. Dean’s vision blurs and he drops the gun. Kuan-yin grips his throat and squeezes.

“Gently Joan.” Alexander’s voice comes from the doorway. Kuan-yin releases Dean as though he’s infectious. By that time Jehane has left the room.

Someone yelps.

“It bit me!”

Dean shifts his focus from Kuan-yin to Baby. A faint glow cloaks her like a nimbus and a guard is rubbing his hand against his hip.

“March it up!” Kuan-yin’s command cuts into the air, daring them to resist.

Dean merely whistles a short phrase to Baby and allows the guards form up around them. Calico’s face peeps mournfully at his through the bodies.

“Min,” he sighs and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry Calico,” Dean tells him but he’s being moved so fast that Dean isn’t sure Calico hears.

They take him into the blank hallway. Kuan-yin’s desire for revenge crowds like another presence beside Dean. But he is not touched as they march along until he’s thrust through a doorway and left alone in a cell.

Dean can’t understand the power Alexander had over him, or the instinct to shoot Jehane to free himself. He doesn’t understand at all the series of events that have left him in this tiny cell.

Baby, with that instinct she has for Dean, begins to sing softly.

_I know it's hard to tell how mixed up you feel_  
_Hoping what you need is behind every door_  
_Each time you get hurt, I don't want you to change_  
_Because everyone has hopes, you're human after all_  
_The feeling sometimes wishing you were someone else_  
_Feeling as though you never belong_  
_This feeling is not sadness, this feeling is not joy_  
_I truly understand, please don't cry now_

Lulled, Dean falls asleep on the floor.

  


.oOo.

  


He wakes to a beep shattering the silence of the cell. A slot appears above the floor and a tray of food and drink appears through it. He reaches over and drags it towards himself and eats.

How often had Bobby told them, ‘Rashness won’t save you. Only confidence and skill.’ Dean smiles slightly as he disposes of the tray down the recycle hatch in the washing cubicle.

At least by shooting Jehane he’s delayed the rest of the interview. He laughs a little, thinking of Alexander’s reaction to being shot. He’d been more concerned with his miscalculation than with his wound.

What plans might such a man have? How, indeed, could people resist him? Abruptly, Dean wonders how the blue-eyed Castiel would fare against him. How would Bobby? Is Bobby even alive?

He wonders where Sam is, uses the sonic shower, cleans his clothes and with nothing else to do slips into kata. He does not try to work up a sweat but needs the actions to loosen muscles stiff from sleeping on the floor. Pausing to assess the restricted space, Dean happens to look up at Baby where she hovers high in one corner, out of his way. Some of her lights blink and she sings.

_Dean, you are concerned for the Master Smith, are you not?_

_Baby,_ he whistles. _Do you know anything about him? Did the foreigners tell you anything?_

She sinks. _Negative, Dean. But I do not believe this group has him. They are human and doubtless from my ancient home and if it is Bobby they seek, they have not yet found him._

_Like he could’ve escaped from those others._

_Pardon, Dean, but you perhaps need a reminder that you, I, Sam and the girl did indeed escape._

“Yeah we did.” He gives the robot a playful bump on her side.

He renews his exercises with more energy, cleaning both himself and his clothes again when he’s done. There’s no terminal in the room, so he sits with Baby and trades songs and games. Sam plays heavily on his mind and he wonders when he’ll see his brother again, refusing to think that it might be an ‘if’. After a time, the beep sounds again and another meal tray comes through.

Only the juice in its plastic cup has any real flavor. He savors it. The cup’s got some rough scrapes around its bottom edge. His finger traces absently along them, forming fanciful letters from the scratches. A _B_ there, then an _E_. A smooth gap, more of the roughness almost like little carvings. This could be an _R, E_?, surely an _A_ next. An _O_. Well perhaps a _D_. It’s novel being only accustomed to seeing letters on a screen and to punching keys or tapping a screen to create them, to see how they might actually be formed manually. A double branch? A _Y_ of course.

Dean stops, drains the last of the juice in a single gulp and lifts the cup up to eye level. On the white surface the letters prove hard to see, but they clearly have been carved there. “BE READY.” He turns the cup. “SOON.” Turns it again. “BS.” That’s all.

“He’s alive.” Dean whistles. He grabs the tray and cup and shoves them into the recycle hatch, returning to kneel exactly opposite the door, hands open on his knees. Baby drifts down behind him.

A low sequence of tones sound and Dean jumps to his feet. Baby sings a barely audible question. Dean puts a hand out flat behind him, resting lightly on Baby in a ‘stay back’ motion. A seam traces out a door and with an inhalation it slides open.

He wears the familiar loose, white trousers and waist-belted tunic, and in one hand carries a metal box. For an instant, Dean compares him to Jehane and for all the mastery of life and art and fighting inherent in every motion he makes, Bobby carries himself unobtrusively.

Without a word, Dean moves forward and hugs him. With that part of the mind that detaches under high emotion, Dean realizes Bobby is only the fourth man he’s ever hugged this closely.

Sam, obviously, that sleet miner from the belts whose one season at Campbell House included a month in Dean’s bed, and Benny.

This is different. He loves Bobby, a very pure, very simple emotion that has no expectations, no desires, no demands.

Dean steps back. “I thought you were dead.” Unshed tears shine in his eyes.

Bobby comes fully into the cell, allowing the door to shut behind him. “Haven’t I told you, Dean? It’s terribly boring being dead. I stay that way for as short a time as possible.” He examines Dean, then seems to come to some conclusion and relaxes.

“How did you get away from those aliens? And how did you find me? You couldn’t have known we were following you.” As Bobby walks past Dean, toward Baby, Dean turns with him, as a plant turns to catch the sun.

Bobby raises one hand in a dismissive gesture, one much like Castiel’s, Dean thinks. “As a species, Kapellans are careless. Their Darwinian flaw is overconfidence. As for the other,” he walks a slow circle around Baby, studying her entirely, “it’s a process too complicated to explain here, although I did return to Kansas briefly. But why’d you think I was dead?”

“The aliens ain’t the only ones after you,” Dean tells him.

“Ah.”

“There’re also humans like us except they’re not from the Riven,” Dean expands.

Bobby raises his eyebrows.

“They’re trying to find you, I think to arrest you.” Still Bobby regards him without surprise. “Maybe they’re connected with those bounty hunters who tried to take you out in Lawrence Port.”

“Maybe.”

“They’ve a picture of you and all these names I’ve never heard before.” Bobby nods. Dean frowns. “And one of them, later I overheard him say, ‘the old man is dead.’”

Whatever reaction Dean had wanted, he gets it in full now.

“Dead!” Bobby’s face changes utterly. He turns away from him, hiding his grief. Dean hangs his head. There’s a long silence. He hears Bobby murmur, “May the Mother bless his spirit,” and he looks up in time to see Bobby trace in the air a series of movements, a final benediction. “He was a friend,” Bobby says quietly. “More than that. He’s the one who laid our path.”

“How can you know it’s the same person—this ‘old man’ and your friend?”

“It’s a long story Dean, really long and we don’t have time. But I do have to ask,” he walks back around Baby, “where _did_ you get a Chevrolet?”

“A what?”

Bobby whistles, snatches of phrases really but the fifth bit is Baby’s signature phrase and Baby responds with a delighted full cadence. “Ah, a nineteen-sixty-five.”

“She’s a nineteen-sixty-seven.”

“The second of her line.” Bobby sounds either impressed or skeptical it’s hard to tell. “The series number is nineteen-sixty-five and each individual unit was numbered from there.”

“Can you communicate with her?” Dean is embarrassed to feel a swell of jealousy.

“Unfortunately no, except with speech. I just know the basic codes in music. Where’d it come from?” Bobby asks.

“I found her in the warehouse about ten years ago. It was an accident really, that I got her to work.” He flushes. “She’s the one that took the prelim test, that’s why it was so high.”

Bobby nods. “I see.”

“And when we came after you, it just seemed, I don’t know… The right thing to do, to bring her with us.”

“You’ve bonded it!” Bobby looks perhaps astonished maybe proud. “That’s quite remarkable.”

“Thank you,” he colors slightly.

“Remarkable,” Bobby echoes. “And lucky for our side. Tell me how you got here.”

Dean tells him, as briefly as he can. Baby adds a few comments in Paisley’s voice.

Bobby considers it all. “Realistically,” he states, “I doubt there’s anything we can do for the Ridani girl.” He raises one hand to forestall Dean’s objection. “For now, at least. We need to consolidate our own position first, which means going and getting Sam next. Then we’ll see.

“As for Jehane? Well I think we should release these foreigners from him. I can’t imagine a man of his ambitions is pleased to know a government far, far more powerful than Central exists, especially if it’s out of his range but he is not out of theirs.” Bobby’s eyes fix for a moment on something invisible to Dean, some thought or memory or speculation. “‘It is customary,’” he repeats in a low voice, “‘for there to be modesty about him.’” He shakes his head and looks at Dean. “Indeed. And if your names have been erased from records, well that leaves us a huge advantage, don’t it?”

Dean stares at him. “We’re not going back, are we?” he asks. “To Kansas?”

“Going back?” Bobby raises the box and plays with it. The door opens. “I got some investigating to do. And you’ve both come too far to go back now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Illusion** by _VNV Nation_.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Baby is a fourth generation Chevrolet Impala.  
> In 1965 there was a total redesign, 1967 and 1969 both got all new bodies on the same redesigned perimeter frame introduced on the 1965 models. All Impalas of this generation received annual facelifts as well, distinguishing each model year.


	10. Chapter 10

The first cell Bobby opens reveals Sam. He’d also received a marked cup from Bobby and is sitting patiently waiting for them. Bobby promises him that Dean will fill him in on everything that’s happened while they were parted later, but for now they need to move.

They find the three foreigners just around the curve of the hall, in the second cell Bobby opens.

All three stand as the door opens. Metatron and Dumah look bewildered, in Metatron’s case it ill-masks fear.

But Castiel, after an energetic rise, merely adjusts his sleeves. “You do take your time, Singer,” he murmurs. “These barbarians’ve failed to provide us with chairs.”

“Angel.” Bobby looks at the blue-haired man with admiration. “You look just the same.” Castiel’s eyes flash blue, the inner light shining out.

“This is ridiculous,” snaps Dumah. “What do you want with us?”

“In all honesty,” Bobby tells her gruffly, “nothing. Thought I’d release you.”

“Into whose mercies?” Metatron is backed into the farthest corner. “Have you thrown in with this Jehane fellow? You’re well acquainted with his sort of methods.”

“You must know my allegiance has never wavered,” Bobby grunts. “I assume you’ve some transport you can reach.”

“I see,” Dumah asserts. “You expect us to take you along. Or will you simply commandeer us?”

“I’m simply opening the door,” Bobby turns. “Come Sam, Dean.”

“Singer.” Bobby stops. Castiel steps forward. “I’ve this sudden uncontrollable urge to tag along with you.”

Bobby turns his head only. “Angel, I don’t need you at my back. I got enough troubles.”

Castiel raises both hands, palms up, open. “No knife.” He smiles gummily.

Bobby laughs.

“Castiel, are you out of your mind?” Metatron’s face is mottling with extreme agitation. “He’s a known terrorist. We’re here to arrest him.”

“Marv.” Castiel’s expression remains dispassionate, his voice tired. Only his eyes glitter with suppressed vitality. “May I remind you that I am myself one of the same?”

“But you recanted.” Dumah is unable to hide her shock and horror.

“Ah, well,” Castiel tells her. “One grows bored of rehabilitation.”

Dumah reaches out to grasp his arm. “You can’t consider it!” she cries.

“I fear I can.” He disengages her hand with deceptive gentleness. “And do.”

“Sam, Dean,” says Bobby. “This is Castiel de Angelis.”

Dean gives a slight nod. He can’t see Sam’s reaction, as his brother is standing behind him, but Dean suspects Sam is smiling in welcome.

Castiel tilts his head to the side and squints. “Charmed.”

“Traitor,” Metatron projects his whisper so everyone hears him.

“Get out,” snaps Dumah. “You can be assured this will go out on report as soon as we reach the ship.”

“Do convey my respects to Rayonne,” Castiel replies.

“Castiel,” says Bobby, motioning to Dean. “We’re leaving.”

Dean hears Castiel sigh as he and Sam edge out into the corridor where Baby hovers on guard. As Bobby comes out beside them Dean leans toward him.

“Do you trust him?” he whispers.

“Course not.” Bobby, worryingly, appears cheerful. “Now,” he continues, briskly waving them forward. “We need to get past two sets of guards. Then I got us a berth on a merchantman. Bit of a dog-tag, but it’ll get us to Central.”

“Central!”

“You’ll both go to Pamela and I’ve some research to do.”

“And I, Singer?” Castiel comes up beside them. The cell doorway is already lost around the unbroken bend of grey hallways.

“You’ll have much to do to refurbish your wardrobe, I expect,” Bobby speaks softly.

“Dear, dear,” murmurs Castiel, even softer. “And in such unpromising districts as well.” With a flick of the wrist a long silver blade appears in his hand. It must’ve been hidden up his sleeve, but Dean isn’t sure how it could have been hidden there and still allow Castiel to bend his elbow. He makes a mental note to ask about it later.

“First post,” Bobby indicates. “We can slip by these.”

He stops and lifts the metal box. A door opens as lights blink on its panel. Castiel, Dean, Sam and Baby follow Bobby through into a large office. The sound of voices drifts in and they all crouch. Bobby moves forward from desk to desk, concealing his approach to the doorway on the far side. Dean motions Sam to follow Bobby and for Castiel to precede himself. Castiel’s smile, barely discernible in the gloom, mocks Dean’s distrust, but he goes.

The small stir of warm air at his feet signals Baby’s sinking. As she comes to rest near the floor, a small panel on her surface lifts up to reveal a miniature keyboard. Dean taps a quick message to her before he creeps forward after Castiel. Behind him, air puffs noiselessly at his trouser legs as Baby follows.

Halfway across he freezes in the shadow of a desk. Baby slides in under it. Three of Jehane’s guards enter the room through the door Bobby is headed for. After a cursory examination of the room, they leave through a side door into a further complex of rooms. A shadow raises itself in front of the far door and, giving a sign with one hand, sinks back into the shadows.

Dean arrives at the door at the same time as Sam and Castiel, each coming from a different direction. Bobby is keying into the comm-panel next to the door. The guards’ voices are nearing as they return.

“Take them out, Dean,” Bobby barely makes any noise as he relays his instruction, not looking up from the panel.

Sam and Dean dash to the side door. Baby and Castiel follow them, but Dean waves them back. As the three guards enter the office, Dean vaults over a desk that shields two of the guards from him. At the same time Sam lands a solid kick to the temple of the third, knocking him out. Dean uses his momentum to push the remaining two off balance. One of the guards reaches for his gun, the other for her radio.

Dean throws a back kick, knocking the woman into a desk before she can reach the radio, before spinning back around to tackle the one with the gun. He grabs the guard’s arms and they both go down, Dean on top. The guard pushes against him. Dean twists the guard’s wrist and with a gasp he releases the gun, but his own momentum rolls him up and over Dean. A sharp impact smacks into the body above Dean and the man goes limp. Dean shoves the guard off him, gets to his feet. Castiel stands beside him, blade in one hand, holding the woman at arm’s length. With a quick snap, he strikes her in the temple with the hilt, then lowers her to the floor and removes the radio from her belt.

“Sorry to intrude,” he murmurs, “as you had them well in hand.” He glances up. The far door has opened a crack; Bobby straightens from the panel. “But we’re in a hurry.”

“Thanks,” says Dean, and he vaults back over the desk to Sam’s side. Castiel strips the three guards of their guns and radios, turns the radios off and drops them all in a random desk drawer as he follows them.

“Wouldn’t they have been useful?”

“Possibly, but if you really thought that, you’d have picked them up yourself.”

Bobby eases the door open manually, surveying outside with a quick glance before motioning them through. They stand in an ordinary station corridor. The door slides shut behind them.

“Angel,” Bobby comments. “Can you…” He waves a hand in Castiel’s direction. “…be less obvious?”

Dean wonders how he’s already become so used to Castiel’s blue hair and glowing eyes. It’s only been a short time, but they seem like such a part of him that it is strange to watch his eyes dim.

“You’re a hard man, Singer,” Castiel mutters. His eyes still seem to contain every shade of blue imaginable but no longer glow. He removes the coat and jacket he’d been wearing and rolls his sleeves up. At some point his silver blade has disappeared. Lastly he removes his tie, rolling it up then tucking it into a pocket before unbuttoning his shirt at the throat.

“Maybe one more,” says Dean, trying not to smile.

Castiel glances straight at Dean and offers him a shy smile as he undoes the suggested button.

The provocative intimacy of the gesture takes Dean by surprise. When he realizes he’s returning the smile, Dean blushes and looks away. To find Sam and Bobby watching him.

“Nothing you can do about the hair I guess,” Bobby grunts. “Let’s go. One more post at the lock.”

He pulls them up just as the curve of the corridor brings the lock into view. Five white-uniformed soldiers, one a tattoo who stands separate from the others, maintain guard at the lock.

“Jehane must not be in this section now,” Dean remarks under his breath.

Bobby shrugs a question.

“There’d be more guards,” Dean explains.

Bobby considers this. His face bears the same intent look as when he does kata: it must all be exact.

“We’ve got no cover for ambush,” he says finally. “We need surprise. The Chevrolet will have to stay back, but come up fast.” Baby blinks acknowledgement. “Dean. Can you give me a prostitute? A station-hopper?”

Dean makes a horrible face. “Do I have to?”

“We’ll let this be a lesson,” Bobby says gently. “Sex can always be used as a weapon against those without discipline.” He looks at Castiel. “And Angel, I’ve always imagined, would do marvelously as a procurer. Sam and I will come in when we can.”

“You flatter me,” says Castiel, but his manner alters subtly. “What’s under all those layers?” Dean pulls his jacket off, which Bobby appropriates, and he hands his flannel to Sam. “Come on Dean, a little more skin.”

Dean looks down at his henley, the only layer that he has left. “Maybe you should swap shirts?” Sam suggests and, before Dean can engage his brain and tell his brother where he can go, Castiel has unbuttoned and removed his white shirt.

Dean peels his green henley off, very aware that they’re standing too close, naked from the waist up. Mouth dry, he slips into the sleeves, watching Castiel’s muscles ripple and disappear under his own recently worn shirt. Dean starts to button up but Castiel pushes his hands aside and tugs the shirt open to hang loose.

Dean is painfully aware the edges of Castiel’s still warm shirt barely cover his nipples, and even more so of Castiel standing right next to him.

“Very nice,” Castiel speaks softly for Dean’s ears only.

“Careful,” Bobby orders as they step forward and Dean feels with sudden instinct that the command isn’t directed at him.

The guards notice them immediately.

“A tad more sway to the hips,” murmurs Castiel provocatively as they advance. “That’s better,” he purrs.

“This is humiliating,” hisses Dean. For an instant the guards seem a trivial consideration compared to Castiel’s powerful yet unsettling presence.

“You’re magnificent when you’re angry,” he breathes. “Let’s hope that when we’re out of this we can find a quiet room, sans your watchful guardian. You seem very important to him.”

“You’re impossible,” whispers Dean.

“Thank you,” he answers fervently, then in a carrying voice. “Gentlemen!” He motions Dean forward until he’s a few paces from the nearest guard who cautiously lowers his gun. “Thank you for entertaining such thoughts as you’re obviously entertaining about my young protégée.”

Five pair of eyes shift to examine Dean. Two more guns lower.

“Hemmed in as we are by all this security,” Castiel waves a negligent hand toward them, “my young charge here has had little opportunity to improve his— ah— skills. And I’m sure you gentlemen know—” he favors each one with a penetrating look “—how important experience is to mastering a skill.” Another gun lowers. Two of the soldiers smile.

“How’d you get in this section?” asks the last one, who is still holding his gun up, although not directly pointed at them.

“My dear boy,” Castiel’s eyes are withering. “Surely you don’t think the previous tenants were without their little pleasures?”

The gun wavers.

“He’s got a point, Roy,” one of the smilers speaks. “They must of got caught back here. And there’s a room just off to the right here.”

“Ah!” Castiel moves forward, ignoring the raised gun and claps the speaker on the shoulder. “Such enterprise should not go unrewarded. Will you take the young lad aside?”

“How much?” he asks.

“He’ll arrange the transaction,” Castiel says generously. “It depends on your, hrmm, _needs_.”

Dean grabs the young fellow’s wrist and, with a tug, makes him follow along. “Come on.”

“Be a good boy, darling,” Castiel calls to his stiff back.

“Hoo, ain’t he eager,” one of the guards jokes.

Roy’s gun lowers slightly. Dean and the eager guard disappear through a door. Dean can hear Castiel regale the four left with an obscene story. Just as Castiel finishes, Dean reappears alone. Roy’s gun has been lowered completely.

“Sure,” says the tattoo. “That were fast.”

“Where is he?” demands Roy.

“Putting his clothes on.” Dean’s voice has a clipped tone that might be mistaken for breathlessness. “You want to be next?” He heads for Roy.

Castiel, quick to read the signs, takes an unobtrusive step back into the midst of the guards. Even to a man of his experience, Dean betrays not the slightest signal of the kick that takes Roy in the groin. As Roy doubles over, Castiel whacks the hilt of his blade along the back of the tattoo’s neck. Dean is past him, thrusting an open palm out. The last two soldiers focus on it, beginning to lift their weapons as Dean whips a crescent kick into the face of Four, spinning off it into a second kick to Five’s ribs. They both stagger back. He drops Four with a punch.

But the tattoo hasn’t gone down and is struggling, gun still in one hand. Roy starts to unbend. Dean is grabbed from behind by the fifth guard.

Sam and Bobby arrive. Sam deals with Roy and Bobby with the tattoo summarily. Castiel moves to find the last guard crumbling at Dean’s feet, the victim of a firmly planted elbow.

Baby is coding into the lock panel which changes to green and opens.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” says Bobby as the door shuts behind them. He hands over Dean’s jacket, which he quickly pulls on drawing it tight around himself. “It seemed most expedient.”

Castiel laughs as he pulls his own jacket on over Dean’s henley, folding the tan coat over his arm.

Dean feels a wave of anger rising in him, at Castiel’s flippancy. He quickly dispels it, buttoning the shirt under his jacket, ignoring the insufferable man. “You were right,” Dean says pointedly to Bobby, “about that lesson.”

The lock opens.

“Walk quickly,” Bobby tells them all as they clear the lock, Baby hovering above them. “Berth Nelson eighteen-oh-five.”

“Nelson.” Castiel chuckles, coughs, and chuckles again, but at a sharp glance from Bobby he subsides.

They split up, walking through several business sections, past shops and scatterings of people who seem, despite the insurrection and the occasional pair of Jehanist soldiers, to be going about their regular pursuits. Baby sinks to Dean’s waist level where she is less conspicuous. A troop of white-uniformed soldiers rush past in the opposite direction.

At the next lock, two soldiers are questioning people. Baby sinks to the floor and, as they come up to the crowd, rolls gently in among the mass of feet. Someone’s arguing with the guards, and Dean recognizes Castiel as the culprit. He’s found a scarf somewhere and has covered his blue hair. As Dean slides past into the lock, Baby just a soft gleam at his feet, Castiel shouts and points behind the soldiers. They look up and Sam slides in past the closing lock door.

The lock opens into a docking sector. Moorsom. Durham. Another lock. Bullen sector. Bayntun. Another and, at last, Nelson.

The alarm sounds, a deep hooting. Another detachment of soldiers pound past. People shrink to the sides of the corridor and traffic slows and stops. Behind, shouts ring out at the lock. Dean strolls, quick but not alone as a few other individuals also have business more pressing than a general alert. He sees berth 1805 and Bobby is standing before it talking with a dark-haired woman in mercenary’s garb. As he watches, Sam reaches Bobby and continues into the ship.

Someone is behind Dean, too close. “A little haste, perhaps,” Castiel murmurs in his ear.

Dean hurries forward just fast enough to put distance between them. As he arrives at the berth, the mercenary smiles at him with obvious sympathy. Dean walks through the open lock without breaking stride, aware of the noise of confusion and shouting closing in behind them.

It’s an old ship, a trifle on the neglected side, and the hold clearly shows signs of age, but Bobby had said it was a bit of a dog-tag. Castiel collides with him and Dean feels a hand press against his neck and hair, as familiar as a lover’s. Castiel’s body is warm and, for a moment, Dean allows himself to lean back into it.

“Dean!” Bobby’s tone is as scandalized as a maiden aunt’s.

Dean turns as Castiel removes his hand. He lifts it to his face in a gesture so alien, as if the contact between them can tell Castiel something about Dean. For an instant, like a hallucination, Dean wonders if Castiel is human.

Behind them, Baby floats in singing, followed by Bobby and the mercenary. The lock shuts.

“We’ll be going out fast,” the mercenary instructs in a low voice, passing them. “Especially if you caused that alarm. I’ll show you to your—” she pauses, taking in four where she’d expected three and she grins at Dean, as if to say, ‘Look what a mess these idiots have made’. “ _Your_ cabin,” she directs at Bobby and Castiel, all the while sharing a knowing look with Dean and Castiel. “You two can share with me,” she finishes with a companionable nod to Sam and Dean. “By the way, my name’s Jody. Jody Mills.” Her grin breaks out again, gently cynical. “And, from Captain Creaser as well as myself, a warm welcome to the _Painted Lady_ , queen of the Highroad.”

“This boat isn’t really called that,” Castiel says.

“But of course it is.” Jody winks at Sam and Dean. “But it’s more a comment about our less than virtuous cargo than our crew.” She leads them into the ship which is, judging by the spasms of conversation and command over the intercom, undocking even as they walk. “In here.” She codes open a door into a tiny double-over-double bunk cabin. Bobby shoves Castiel inside. “How about the ’bot?” asks Jody.

“She goes with me.” Dean tells her.

“My cabin’s just down here.” Jody has a quick stride so even with their longer legs Sam and Dean need to keep moving or lose her. “I’ve never seen a ’bot like that before,” the mercenary adds. “Or a man with blue hair.” She pauses for the barest moment, like she’s testing the tension then asks, “Is the other one your brother?”

“My brother?” Dean looks up, meeting Jody’s frankly speculative look and smiles. “No, Sam’s my brother.” For some reason he thinks of Castiel’s hand on his neck and of Bobby’s sharp reaction. “Bobby’s more like my father,” he adds slowly.

“That explains it,” says Jody. “My father got testy when I started bringing boyfriends home.”

“Boyfriend!” Dean looks sharply to Sam but his brother’s just grinning at him.

Jody stops in front of a cabin door and enters her code into the panel. “Come in,” she says, “but watch out for small animals.”

The high warning chime of final undocking rings out over the intercom.

“Get a seat, quick,” says Jody as Dean collides with a waist-high, golden-haired impediment. It yelps. The ship lurches, sending Sam and Dean tumbling past the impediment to land with a jar on a lower bunk. Another lurch slams Dean against the bank’s side wall, Sam only staying off of him by grabbing the bunk above them. By the third lurch, they are prepared. A few more rolling movements, like a restless beast at last settling down, shudder through the ship.

Baby’s wedged herself partially under the bunk, her lights blink eye to eye with a small boy of about five years whose light hair proclaim him to be the impediment. The boy makes distorted faces at himself in the gleam of Baby’s surface.

“Owen!” The boy darts a glance in Dean’s direction and resumes his contortions. But Dean, more startled, finds a young woman beside him on the bunk drawn up into one corner like a frightened, but defensive, creature caught out in the wild.

“Shit, sorry,” Dean apologizes rising.

“Keep down,” Jody tells him quickly from the floor. “We’re due another roll.” The ship rolls, reseating Dean firmly. The young woman on the bunk smiles. “Pierce has some predictable habits,” Jody adds. “You may’ve guessed he didn’t graduate top of his class at the pilot’s academy.”

“But, Jody,” the other woman’s voice is so soft it seems to barely penetrate the air, “you said yourself we’d be undocking without permission. You can’t fault Pierce for the roughness.”

Jody grins. She pushes herself up with practiced ease and scoops the boy up into her arms. He wriggles in delight and grins. Seeing the likeness in that smile and in the strong set of his jaw, Dean knows exactly whose child he is. “Always fair, that’s my Alex,” Jody states. “Sam, Dean, this is my son, Owen and that’s Alex, my adopted daughter.” She pauses, looking at the two of them. “I hope I read things right back there, that you’d want to be away from the other two men, but to stay together? Sometimes I let my instincts run before I’ve a chance to think.”

Dean smiles back at her, finding her friendly and open manner a balm. Events have been so chaotic around them that he welcomes a chance to breathe. “Your training must’ve been good,” he replies. “Your instincts are spot on. I’m Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam.”

“You’ve had some training yourselves.” Jody sizes Sam and Dean up. “We’ll leave you alone as much we can, in such space. We’ll need to sleep in shifts and Owen’s small enough to share with either me or Alex, but that leaves four adults and only two beds. But if you ever want a scrap, we’ve got a rec room on board that can be cleared out for a bit of sparring.”

“You’re on.” Dean studies the other woman. Jody’s shorter, wiry and lean with that tight, high shouldered look that comes with physical authority.

“Wanna play with the ’bot,” demands the boy Owen, struggles in his mother’s arms. Jody lets him down, after first glancing at Dean.

Dean sits cross legged on the bed and Sam takes a place on the floor. “Did we really undock without authorization? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Jody shrugs. “No more than getting impounded by the Jehanists. Better to cut ‘n’ run. They’re spreading like wildfire out here on the fringe.”

“Where’d they come from? We grew up on Kansas and never heard of any rebellion until a few days ago.”

“It’s not surprising. Those of us on the road’ve come across it these past several years, growing but nothing like it’s growing now. Jehane, whoever he is, if he or she really exists, seems to have decided that the time, or his resources, are right.”

“Oh, he exists,” says Dean. “I’ve met him.”

“Did you?” Jody pulls a hard plastic chair down from one wall and sits. Owen’s at her feet, happily trading whistles with Baby.

“What’s he like?” Alex asks, a tangle of brown hair trailing over her shoulder.

“You should see your face right now,” Jody chuckles. “In any case, planetside folk only hear what’s on the network and you can be sure the government doesn’t let any Jehanish news get on there.”

“You mean they censor the news?”

“Where’ve you been, Winchester? Why do you think this old boat’s got experience cutting and running? Most of the cargoes she runs don’t have permits. The captain doesn’t have a permit, for that matter. Most of the crew have some mark in their past that stops them from getting work on authorized ships. Why else do you think we’d ship on a half-mended tub with a mediocre pilot whose vectors are slipshod and a captain who drinks too much ambergloss?”

“I didn’t really get a look at the ship,” Sam says diplomatically.

“You will. Don’t look too close. Not that I’ve much sympathy for the Jehanists either, especially their giving so much power to the tattoos. It’ll only create a bloodbath. But I can’t say I don’t understand why so many are joining him. Central’s been keeping all the privileges to themselves and not giving any to the rest of us. I saw that well enough.” The glance she exchanges with Alex is full of private meaning.

“I suppose we should confess,” Sam is uncomfortable. “We’re children of a Sar-house. So it’s no wonder we never noticed anything wrong.”

Jody regards them with a level look, her eyes dark with knowing. “I daresay we can learn to tolerate you, despite all that,” she winks.

Alex laughs and Dean realizes they are, for the time being, at home here.

The next few days fall into a routine. Alex procures a second set of clothing for Sam and Dean. During the long hours of cruising to or waiting for windows, they spar with each other, along with Jody and Bobby, and sometimes even Castiel. They accumulate a few bruises, meet the disreputable crew of the _Painted Lady_ and see how life goes on in a dog-tagging merchantman that smuggles for its living. They, along with Bobby and Castiel, are evidently their current cargo. Bobby refuses to tell them the cost of their passage, although he does offer to man a bridge station on the odd shift. The captain is grateful for the help and puts him on communications.

Dean’s feelings about Castiel easily swing from annoyance to attraction to curiosity about his intriguing strangeness within the space of a few moments. He really wants to get Castiel to himself to question him about his and Bobby’s past. Bobby, in response to those questions, deflects them so easily that Dean wonders where he learned such methods of evasion.

To Dean’s outright demands Bobby counsels patience. When he asks if Bobby Smith’s his real name, he merely answers, “As real as any name can be, defining so much with so little.” Castiel persists in calling him Singer and in laughing at allusions whose source or meaning Dean can’t guess at.

Five days into the trip, Dean returns to his cabin to find Alex helping Jody outfit herself. Owen’s banished to the top bunk.

“Trouble?” Dean asks as they look up at his entrance.

Jody shrugs on a double-belted shoulder harness which sports a fascinating array of weapons. “Nothing that isn’t routine for a smuggler,” she replies with a grimace. “The main routes into Central are so heavily policed and regulated that we’ve got to come in the back door. But back door also means back roads and it’s a little fey out here.. The navigation points are a little shiftier, if you take my meaning, and we’ve run into pirates more than once.” She wears a skintight grey bodysuit; her hair, short anyway, is covered with a skullcap. She takes out a forearm length metal rod and twirls it. “Bobby knows how to use one of these,” she says. “We had a go at it today.”

“Is that how he got that cut on his cheek?”

“Forgive me, but no!” Jody contrives to look offended. “I’ve got better control than that. And anyway, your father is one mean old bastard and taught me a trick or two, much as I hate to admit it. No, your brother had to try it. I don’t mean to say he’s useless, because he’s really rather good, but he’s not got the real knack.”

“I wish I’d done more weapons.” Dean takes the stick when Jody offers it to him and weighs it in his hands. “We did some, but I’ve always preferred empty-hand. Sam’s the same, although he does excel at knife work.”

“That’s because you’re an artist.” Jody retrieves the stick and slides it into her belt. “I’m just trained to kill.”

“Can I help?”

“You’re not used to this kind of raiding. Stick to the cabin for now.”

Bobby has other plans. He persuades the captain to let Sam and Dean sit next to him on the bridge for the next shift. Strapping himself in, Bobby leans to whisper to them.

“We’re going to be running an irregular route here. This is possibly the best chance you’ll ever get to see firsthand how they run the road virtually on manual.”

Sam’s reply is equally soft. “Isn’t it a lot more dangerous?”

Bobby scowls. He seems placid, but beneath it… beneath it Dean suspects Bobby thrives on chances like this. “Living is dangerous, boys.” He turns back to the comm-console.

They watch the two harried Sta navigators, doubling shifts to ensure accuracy, and Pierce the pilot, a sloppy loudmouthed man who sits still as sealed air now. Captain Creaser is nervous at the sensors, the weapons man and the scanner operator are quiet at their stations.

“Homing at eleven ought-two-two-three degrees. Forty-seven bits.” The Sta’s sibilant tones are easily heard on the too quiet deck.

“Check.”

“Shift. Two-point-eight on vector.”

“Vector shifted.”

“Eleven-ought-three. Forty-eight.”

“Closing imperative.” Bobby’s voice.

“Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Break.”

They go through.

 

> _The mind like water, forms a calm reflectivity. All is mirrored._

And come out.

The calculations start afresh. A station, a solitary beacon in a dark and isolated system, quavers a greeting and wishes them well.

They go through.

 

> _The mind like the moon. Light touching all equally._

And come out.

They drift for an eight-hour rest shift on the edge of a minor system. On a dog-tag such as this, with a necessarily small crew, Dean sees how easy it could be to lose your ship through a miscalculated window or on an incorrectly vectored entrance just from fatigue. He wonders where such ships end up. He sees how these folk might easily come, like Jody, to bear themselves with a cheerful fatalism. Bobby wakes them and they return to the bridge.

They go through.

 

> _Infinity of stars. Place, in this dimension, a hand, so. Bend, angle, shadow, each exact._

And come out.

And are hailed. Bobby secures the channel and replies. Captain Creaser standd anxiously beside him.

“This is the _Painted Lady_. We are passing through.”

“Throw down your colors, _Painted Lady_ and prepare to be boarded.” Static across the channel lends a certain indifference to the command.

Creaser flips on the alert. It echoes over the intercom.

“Captain!” The woman on scanners gasps. “I’ve got them. Void help us. They’re huge. Captain, look at those specs! Central’s battle fleet’s got nothing this big. Look at that hull!” Her voice trails off in horrified awe.

“The _Painted Lady_ replies that she is not available to just anyone,” Bobby transmits voice prim.

Static crackles. “We respect your finer feelings, _Painted Lady_ , but this is _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ and she takes what she wants.”

“Get me the closest window!” cries the captain, rushing to the scanners. The navigator begins frantic calculations on the computer, but Dean sees Bobby’s face freeze into stillness and thaw into anticipation.

“ _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ ,” he calls into the console. “Tell your mistress that I’m from the region of the summer stars.”

Sam and Dean stare at him. Most of the bridge, catching the end of this, stare at him. Creaser steps back, about to speak.

“Stay on course, _Painted Lady_. Don’t attempt evasion.” Static arcs.

A second voice. “Hold your course. Please repeat your last statement.” Bobby repeats it. A longer pause, scrambled with the faint hiss of static.

“ _Painted Lady_.” A new voice. Female, yet something more than that. “‘Long and white are my fingers as the ninth wave of the sea.’” Even the Sta now ceases his calculations to look in astonishment at Bobby. “Are you coming over?”

“Of course,” replies Bobby and he unstraps himself standing. “Captain, give me a shuttle and crew and I can guarantee your safety, your cargo and your ship.”

“But who is that?” the captain asks, gazing at the scan numbers with bewilderment. “What is that? What pirate has a better than class seven fleet ship?”

“An entirely different breed of pirate,” Bobby answers, not ungently. “And in any case, we have just met the queen.”

“I thought we were on the queen,” Dean mutters.

“That was a joke,” Bobby is perfect seriousness. “ _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ is the true and the only queen of the Highroad. Shall we go?”


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel comes, along with three of the crew, but Captain Creaser insists that one of them stay on board the _Painted Lady_. It seems a strange request due to his usual demeanor but Dean catches a comment made to Sam as he walks off the shuttle about him being insurance the shuttle will be returned. Dean whistles a quick instruction to Baby and watches her follow his brother back onto the ship.

After the jerky removal from the _Painted Lady_ , Castiel demands and receives the shuttle’s controls. The massive frame of _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ looms outside the viewports. She’s as large as the unmanned Lowroad freighters Dean’s grandfather commissions for transport of unprocessed ore, but she’s also as sleek as an animal, a dark creature stalking the Highroad.

“Do you know her, this ship?” Dean asks Bobby.

“This ship? No, she’s new.” He tidies himself, straightening his clothes, combing his hair. “But I know her mistress. I know Ellen Harvelle.” His voice has a husky quality. “These people ain’t from the Riven, Dean. Like Castiel, they’ve come a long way to get here.”

“Like you,” Dean says, but Bobby merely scowls.

Grappling hooks ring on the shuttle’s hull as the big ship fastens onto them. Time drags slowly as they wait for the lock seal to turn green. Bobby, Dean and Castiel pass into the ship while the _Painted Lady’s_ crew remain aboard the shuttle.

Four armed men met them. One, to Dean’s surprise, is a tattoo, standing with complete ease amongst his fellows. They wear striking clothes. Large-sleeved shirts of silk, each a different color, scarlet, turquoise, emerald and indigo. Tailored white trousers, wide belts and ornately hilted cutlasses, high boots, rings, jeweled bracelets, necklaces of gold, silver and platinum. It’s a uniform, but one individual to each man.

The guards politely request their presence on the bridge. Bobby politely agrees.

They follow corridors that seem as numerous and as long as those of Campbell House. No grey walls here, from brilliant solid colors on the lowest deck, the decoration progresses from simple geometric patterns, to murals and at the top deck a complex interaction of color, pattern, raised relief and texture that is evidently so fascinating to Castiel that he lags behind to examine it by touch. He has to hurry finally to catch them just as the lift doors begin to shut.

The doors open onto the bridge. The four guards hang back and let their three guests move out unescorted. Five steps lead down to a half-circle of silver floor. Chairs, individually crafted, sit before consoles inlaid with the material Bobby calls wood. The crew, as brightly dressed as the guards, converse in low tones to each other. Here too Dean sees Ridanis casually intermixing and it is this more than anything that convinces him this ship at least comes from outside the Riven.

Three huge screens fill the forward part of the half-dome above. One chair on a low dais sits with its back to them. Like a stilling hand, as the chair begins to swivel in its foundation its smooth silent turn creates a sudden immobility among the watching crew.

She is revealed as dawn is revealed. The slow, anticipatory unveiling that brings forth the sun. Her face framed by waves of golden brown hair falling down over her shoulders. Her eyes, even at this distance, pierce with honey gold intensity. She wears simple clothes, an over-shirt belted with gold clasps at the waist, close fitted pants that cling to her legs. She stands and there’s not a person in the room who isn’t looking to her.

“What have you brought me?” Her voice fills the bridge as air fills any space it enters. “Is this a ghost, or is it indeed the seventh age?”

Bobby walks forward, a solitary path across the silver floor. He kneels at her feet on the dais.

With two fingers she raises his head until he looks up at her. “Is this truly my Singer?”

He lifts a hand to enfold hers, brings it to his lips and kisses it with the reverence due a sacred object. “It’s truly your Singer, Ellen.” His voice is soft, the slightest movement in the room would overwhelm it. “Dead, mad and a poet.” He smiles as absently and thoroughly as a dreamer.

She studies him for a time then lifts her head to examine with unnerving steadiness Dean and Castiel. “The Angel I recollect,” she speaks in her quiet way. Dean feels Castiel shift in apparent disquiet beside him. “But who is this young man?” Meeting her eyes, Dean feels he can deal with this woman, in the open-handed sense, although the formidable reserve behind her penetrating look might never allow for the intimacy of friendship. Caught up in her perusal, Dean’s unaware of Bobby turning his head to look at them.

Dean understands that mere names won’t satisfy the question Ellen just asked. She deals in relationships and Bobby is rarely at a loss for an answer, but he looks at Dean and Dean can tell that he’s having trouble defining him.

“Ellen,” he speaks eventually, as grave as he is surprised, standing now. “I’d like you to meet my son, Dean.”

Castiel’s astonishment is physical. Dean feels him start, like a bolting animal glimpsing freedom. His hand touches Dean’s elbow, as he blurts, “Mother bless us.”

Ellen looks not in the least disconcerted, merely thoughtful. Dean realizes that from their conversation with Jody that this isn’t entirely unexpected.

“Then my dear,” Ellen speaks, “I must offer you my welcome and give you the hospitality of the ship while you wait.”

“Are we waiting?” asks Dean.

“Of course, my child. Your father and I have some private business to discuss.”

“But will our ship wait?” Dean asks it more of Bobby than Ellen, worried about Sam, but he merely stands as meek as a servant beside her.

Ellen smiles a smile so ruthlessly cold that Dean feels pity for those souls who find themselves in opposition to her. “With our guns trained on them, I feel they will find that their patience extends indefinitely. Ash,” she beckons with a single, imperious hand and a man stands from one of the consoles and comes to stand at the foot of the dais. “Give your father your good wishes and then offer your brother and the Angel some refreshment.”

The man she named Ash bows, which is salute enough on this ship, and steps up to give a Bobby stiff handshake and say a few inaudible words. He retreats as Bobby puts his arm out to take Ellen’s and the two of them walk as if on procession into the lift, the door sealing them off from the rest. The bridge crew turn with self-conscious busyness back to their tasks, leaving Ash alone to approach Dean and Castiel. The four guards have vanished.

“Well Bro,” Ash regards him with a wary but not unfriendly look. “Shall we go?”

They wait for the lift to return to the bridge and step into it when it does. “Would you mind terribly if we went to medical first?” Castiel asks Ash as he reaches for the panel. “The suite on the _Painted Lady_ is, I find, sadly lacking.”

“And you want to pilfer our supplies,” Ash snorts. “As long as you don’t take anything that we can’t replace it should be fine.”

When they arrive at Medical the doctor on duty is only too happy to give Castiel access to their supply closets once Ash tells him Angel is a guest of Ellen herself.

“All good?” Ash asks Castiel as he searches through cabinets and drawers. Castiel waves a distracted hand and continues his search.

He finds a small carry pack and fills it with Dean can’t tell what, but some assortment of bottles and packets. Castiel zips the pouch closed and indicates that he’s got what he needs.

They don’t say anything more as they walk along the top deck and into the dining hall and lounge. Plush couches, upholstered in patterns of spirals and chevrons, sit in intimate groupings across the carpeted floor. Wall hangings depict unfamiliar scenes. A woman riding a horse with a swarm of birds surrounding her. An asteroid belt littered with the debris of wrecked ships, the shapes of unfortunate crew members floating nearby. A woman armed much as Jody had armed herself, but with primitive weapons.

Wooden tables and chairs are supported on legs carved into curving, sensuous shapes that beg one to stroke them. Ash sits them at one of the tables and leaves to fetch refreshments.

Castiel, opposite Dean, leans across the table and clasps his hands in his own. “Dean!” he breathes in an undertone; farther away other people move or sit in their own conversations within the hall. His blue eyes, glowing from within, have a wild look to them, a curious mirror to the unruly mop of his hair. “Marry me!”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“Marry me,” he repeats, his hands tightening on Dean’s. He pulls Dean toward him, like Castiel means to kiss him.

Dean draws back. “What does ‘marry’ mean?”

It’s Castiel’s turn to blink, to have to puzzle this out. Seeing him at a loss is so unusual that Dean smiles. Perhaps he takes this for encouragement, because he bends closer to Dean. “You must have a word for it. Marry, mate, bond—”

“Bond!” Dean laughs. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” he says, quickly shifting ground.

“But Castiel, first of all, we don’t even qualify.”

“Qualify! Dean, when does love have to be qualified?”

Dean feels that he would be in a better position to conduct this conversation if his hands were not caught in Castiel’s, but he doesn’t attempt to free them. “What does love have to do with bonding?” he retorts. “My grandfather wouldn’t be interested in an economic bond with you, since it wouldn’t bring him any trading benefits.”

“Oh, wouldn’t he,” mutters Castiel darkly.

“And since we’re both men, we can’t enter into a child-sponsor pair-bond.”

“But Dean, surely two people in love have some bond they can share.”

Dean regards him with deep suspicion. “They can share whatever they want. I don’t know what a legal bond has to do with it.”

Castiel releases his hands abruptly and lets his head rest on one hand, murmuring something to himself in a foreign language. His hair curls in wild waves around his bronzed fingers, pink tips revealed at intervals. His eyes, deep set, have the faintest trace of glow to them again, lending them depth and a certain unspoken mystery. They are currently fixed with apparent anguish on the tabletop. His lips are set as much in petulance as in distress. They look, Dean thinks, touched by a sudden shy amusement, like they want to be kissed and so he stretches across the table and kisses them. Castiel’s free hand traps him there immediately, but whatever this threatens to develop into is cut short by Ash’s return. He set his tray down with obvious intrusiveness and shoots Dean a skeptical glance as Dean sits back and Ash settles in beside him.

“I don’t think Father would approve,” Ash says with a trace of sarcasm as he hands out drinks and pastries.

“Wouldn’t he?” asks Dean with sincere interest.

Ash shrugs. “You know what a tyrant he is.”

Dean laughs, unable to picture Bobby in any guise but that of his calm and intent sensei.

“You may laugh,” Castiel tells him. “I suppose as his son you’ve received special treatment.” He and Ash exchange glances and some understanding passes between them, so Dean feels they’re now in league against him. He wishes not for the first time that Sam had been allowed to join them, rather than staying behind on the _Painted Lady_.

“But I’m not—” he stops. Better, perhaps, on this ship, to keep up the masquerade, to let them continue to think he’s Bobby’s physical son. Ellen would surely know soon that it’s a spiritual designation, not blood. But to Ellen the distinction would probably be meaningless. He takes a long, cooling drink from his glass. “I’m not sure. I don’t understand why everyone seems afraid of him.”

Castiel simply looks at him and shakes his head. Ash’s eyes, so close in color to his father’s, bear within them seeds of bitterness, so that he looks, at this moment, nothing like Bobby at all.

“Any sane person is afraid of the Singer, brother,” he replies, that sardonic tone creeping in again. “He is the master of the art.”

“Not the art you’re thinking of Dean,” Castiel clarifies.

“Which art, then?”

“He doesn’t know?” Ash is openly skeptical.

“He does not,” Castiel answers quickly. “I didn’t believe it at first either, but Singer warned me off telling him the truth.”

“He did what?” Dean’s voice shatters the quiet leisure of the hall.

“Dean.” Ash’s voice is low but insistent as he rises. “Let’s go into one of the private rooms. We don’t want to make a scene.”

“Oh, by no means,” Dean spits scathingly.

As he stands he sees faces shifting to regard the trio curiously. Castiel moves to stand beside Dean and there’s a sudden scuffle of chairs and a man hurries out of the hall. He glances back once quickly from the door. Dean gets a brief glimpse of a brilliant red scar disfiguring his forehead and then he’s gone.

“So much for discretion,” murmurs Castiel, as the other people in the hall pointedly return to their own business.

Ash stares at the door as he considers some thought that he keeps to himself. He glances at Castiel finally, shrugs and turns to lead them to a room off the main hall. After he shuts the door behind them, he locks it manually and motions Dean to the couch. Castiel sits in the single plush chair. Dean ignores the couch to pace from one side of the room to the other, stopping back in the center.

“Now what’s this conspiracy of silence? Whatever the truth is, it can’t be worse than what I’m imagining. By the Void Ash, if you’re my brother I’d think you’d support me. I certainly can’t expect that from Castiel.”

“Now that’s not fair,” Castiel immediately defends himself. “But I do have my life to consider.”

Dean turns on him. “I was under the impression you didn’t care about your life. Do you really think he’d kill you if you told me whatever the truth is?”

“Dean,” he stands, “what right do I have to tell you about his past if he doesn’t choose to?”

“Dean’s got a point,” Ash states. “It’s not necessarily in his best interests for Father to keep him ignorant.”

“That’s right.” Dean shoots Ash a triumphant glance. “When we’re being chased all over the Riven by people we don’t know but who think they know us, then it becomes self-preservation.”

“After all,” Ash points out, “when Jo betrayed him, he could’ve killed her, but he didn’t.”

“Reassuring thought,” mutters Castiel.

“Who’s Jo?” Dean asks.

“My twin.” A hesitation. “Our sister. She’s not received in polite society, I fear.”

“Shit,” says Dean. “What a family. But in any case, I’ll protect you, if it comes to it.”

“You’ll protect us?” Ash flings himself into the chair Castiel vacated. “The family arrogance ain’t a bad thing Bro but it don’t do to overdo it, if you take my meaning.” His lips curls in a disdainful smile.

But Castiel smiles and takes the opportunity to arrange himself on the couch. “You haven’t seen him fight.”

“That’s right,” Dean looks Ash straight in the eye. “You haven’t seen me fight. Do you want to?”

Ash smiles without humor.

“You know Ash,” Castiel continues, “It’d be best to let Dean question me alone. I’ll take all the risk myself.”

Ash’s expression is increasingly dubious, but he stands. “Oh, I agree. Especially if you’re creating other reasons for him to protect you. I’ll lock the door as I go out.” He pauses. “You _are_ the one called The Angel, aren’t you.”

Castiel raises a hand in acknowledgment.

“Is it true, or just another one of those legends, that you single-handedly held off an entire battalion of chameleon shock troops in the retreat at the Betaos engagement?”

Castiel sighs. “It’s so tiring to remember.”

Ash briefly laughs, but he sketches Castiel the trace of a respectful bow. The door shuts behind him with a tangible click. “Well, Dean,” Castiel speaks quietly, still draped becomingly on the couch. “Anything you want.”

Now that they’re absolutely alone and unlikely to be disturbed, Dean should be considering all the questions he has for Castiel, working out which to ask first. Instead he’s caught up in the feelings of arousal that looking at Castiel, with Castiel looking back at him, stimulates.

“I have so many questions,” Dean mutters. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You can start by sitting down. It’s exhausting watching you expend all that energy.” He moves, leaving room on the couch.

Dean sits, but he shifts restlessly in the space. Castiel settles an arm around Dean. The familiar warmth his proximity and his almost sweet scent stills Dean.

“You really are from back over the way, aren’t you?” he asks in a low voice, “all of you and him, too.”

“Yes.”

“Have they known all along we are out here? Did they just abandon us?”

“I don’t know. I’d never heard of the Riven. It’s a long trip out here. We had to calculate as we went.”

“Just to get Bobby?” It’s not quite a question. “Cas, how do you know him?”

“We worked together. In the war. I don’t know how to explain it to you Dean because there’s so much you don’t know. Mother alone knows how many centuries of history you people out here missed.”

“We have our own history,” Dean replies with a touch of gruffness.

“Of course you do,” Cas responds, his apology sweeter with the quickness he seeks to appease Dean. “I’m just surprised Singer let you identify with this place, rather than preparing you for your heritage.”

“Which is?”

“The League. The home planets. The glorious revolution, from which he and I and others like us emerged both heroes and hunted.”

“Like Pamela Barnes?”

“Mother help me.” His eyes lose their focus on Dean for a moment and fixate elsewhere. “She’s here, too?”

“I’ve heard her mentioned,” Dean replies as coolly as he can, hiding his worry at the sudden shift in Cas’ attention. “You say you worked together, you and Bobby.”

“Ah, yes.” Castiel resettles himself on the couch; one side of his body touching Dean, the slightest pressure, but it needs no more than that. “We worked as agents, sometimes on both sides to get what we needed, to break down the enemy’s systems from within.”

“You were saboteurs.”

“Actually,” Castiel brushes his cheek, his fingers caressing Dean’s skin, “we were terrorists.”

It takes him a moment to reply. All his breath has become entangled in the quickening beating of his heart and not because of what Cas is saying. Dean catches half a breath finally. “Who is this war against?”

“An alien power,” Cas shrugs, shifting again. This time his hand slips onto Dean’s thigh and he leaves it there. “You wouldn’t know of them.”

“The Kapellans.” As he did with Bobby, Dean finds it entertaining to surprise Castiel. To watch Castiel’s eyes blaze blu, as he strives to suppress the expression on his face. “I do have a model nineteen-sixty-five Chevrolet, you know.”

“So you do.” With his free arm Castiel pulls Dean halfway around to face him more clearly. “Dean,” he starts. Their legs tangle as Dean allows one of his to slide between Castiel’s while his hand creeps up to rest on Castiel’s chest. Dean realizes Castiel is wearing his old Henley. He’s become so used to seeing Castiel wear it that he’s stopped thinking of it as his. But now, looking down at Castiel wearing his clothes, Dean feels a possessive urge ripple through him. He traces the shape of Castiel through the thin material.

“Dean,” he tries again, but the tenor of his voice has changed.

Abruptly, staring down into Castiel’s face Dean feels like he is about to lose his footing. As if the ground is slipping away beneath him; an avalanche in Kansas’ storms. “Is that all you’ve ever been, a terrorist?” he asks, like the question is his last stable anchor on unstable ground.

Castiel lays a warm hand on the back of his neck. “By profession, I’m a physician.”

“Why did you come with us,” Dean murmurs, “back at Nevermore?”

“Because I fell in love with you.”

Dean laughs, low and short, and giving in at last to impulse, traces the curve of Castiel’s lips with one finger. “That’s not true.”

“How do you know?” he asks. “How can you possibly know?” Castiel pulls Dean closer to him, arms tightening to bring him into full contact with him. Dean is alive to the smallest movements of his body against his, sensing the fresh, enticing scent of Castiel’s skin almost like a caress.

“I’m not his real son,” Dean whispers.

Castiel’s eyes had lost utterly any lethargy they once held. They burn brilliantly vital now. “Born or adopted. It doesn’t matter.”

“To you or to him?” Dean’s hand rests in his hair, although it appears thick in its wild disarray, its fine between Dean’s fingers. He draws them through it with sudden intensity, reveling in its silken texture.

Castiel stops breathing for an endless moment then lets out his breath in a long exhalation. His eyes have narrowed, at the same time entirely focusing on Dean and yet slightly removed, like the strength of his emotions has forced Castiel to take stock of the situation.

“To anyone,” he breathes. He shuts his eyes and kisses him. Dean, with what vestiges of rational thought remain to him, reflects that this final statement, at least, has been uttered with complete sincerity. “Damn it,” he says a timeless moment later, “You’re wearing too many layers again”

  


.oOo.

  


Later, lying quietly together on the couch, Dean bemoans the lack of a proper bed. “Ah, well,” Cas murmurs in Dean’s ear, one hand stroking his back, “patience is its own reward. Or is that virtue?”

Dean smiles, but he is too relaxed to make the effort of replying. Instead, he presses himself closer against Cas, finding the angles where his body fits in along his and promptly falls asleep.

Dean wakes sometime later to a gentle shake that dissolves into a long kiss.

“Much as I regret the necessity,” Cas pulls away to speak, “we should put our clothes on.” Two authoritative knocks sound on the door and he quirks an eyebrow.

Dean disentangles himself from Cas, sitting up and gathers his clothing. “Cas,” he asks as he pulls on his boots, “are you really a doctor?”

“Yes. My specialty is triage. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” Dean runs his fingers through Cas’ hair trying to give it some semblance of neatness, but quickly gives up. Sighing he opens the door.

Ash enters. “Well,” he says expansively, eyeing the even more unruly mess of Castiel’s hair. “I hope you got what you needed, bro.”

“I got no better than I deserve,” Dean replies, unable to keep a certain smug satisfaction from his voice. “Though I do have some questions I wouldn’t mind asking you brother.”

He grins with the most outward display of friendliness Dean has seen from him. “I came to see if you wanted dinner.”

“I’d love some,” Dean replies, his stomach growling at the mention of food.

  


.oOo.

  


It’s a lavish meal. A liquor Ash calls cognac coming with dessert. “You eat well on this ship,” Dean remarks.

Ash shrugs. “Mother’s a connoisseur and is kind enough to see that it rubs off on the rest of us. When the most famous chef in the League refused her offer of employment, she kidnapped him.”

“Is he still here?”

Ash gives a pointed look at their empty plates and the single remaining pastry on the dessert tray, which even now Dean is reaching for. “Of course. Much happier than he was before. But then, Mother’s always had a way with people.”

“I suppose,” Castiel remarks not quite dismissively. “I grant Ellen has presence, but I’ve never felt any desire to become obsessed with her.”

“No offense intended,” Ash replies, “but you aren’t her type.”

“No offense taken,” Castiel grins, “being as I am, no better and no worse than I should be.”

“Do you mean Bobby, that is Singer, isn’t the only one? Of her, ah men?” Dean stumbles over his words.

Ash burst into laughter. “What notions you have.” He pours a second glass of cognac for them all. “Of course not. But Father was the first. They were very young when they met and he’s the only one she ever bore children by. That means more than Mother will ever admit to. But no he’s not her only one.”

Cas, with a single finger, turns Dean’s head to face him. “‘He found me roots of relish sweet,’” he recites in a low voice, as ardently as if he’s making love to Dean again, “‘And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange he says,’” Cas leans into him until his lips brush Dean’s cheek. “‘I love thee true.’”

Dean can only look at Cas. Beneath his confidence and apparent fearlessness, the act he plays of apathy and tired cynicism, is an intensity that both flatters and alarms Dean.

“You’re very well read,” Ash comments.

Cas affectionately flicks Dean’s cheek with his finger and picks up his glass. “I spent a long time in prison,” he replies with a shrug. “But tell me, I thought only the League is investigating the navigation routes to this area.”

“The League isn’t the only one interested in what’s going on out here.” Ash, when he’s concealing information, definitely resembles their father. “We’re on the trail of Chameleons.”

“Out here? By the Mother, Naomi will have a fit.”

“What are chameleons?”

“Your Kapellans, my love,” Cas replies. “And you don’t want the trouble they bring.”

“I’m still not convinced I want any of you and the trouble you bring,” retorts Dean.

Ash slaps him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit,” he jokes. “You’ll fit right into the family.”

“Thank you,” Dean responds.

“But come along and meet the crew. The Mother alone knows how long it’ll be until we see the parents again and as your hosts we must keep you entertained. And of course, everyone wants to meet Singer’s heir.” He stands, glass in one hand. “And the Angel,” he adds, saluting Castiel with his drink. “Is it true that you’re the only person besides Mother to have saved Singer’s life? That you carried him through five kilometers of burning and decompressed space station you’d just blown up and then operated with only a laser pistol, a Swiss army knife and a six year old Kapellan girl to assist you? Or is that just another one of those stories?”

“Cas,” Dean touches his arm. “Is that true?”

“Did you say there is more of this cognac?” Castiel defers. “It’s very good.”

How long they spend on the ship Dean is never quite sure. They meet a great many people and drink too much. Dean takes on a wager to spar a great hulking brute of a mercenary and lays him out in two passes. They drink more, mostly toasts to Dean’s victory.

Dean finds himself alone in a cabin with Cas, who has acquired a new jacket that Dean insists he remove from him along with the rest of his clothing, one piece at a time in order to examine it in more detail. Which leads to examining Cas in more detail and a long pleasant, but ultimately muddled interlude. After which, back in the hall again, he sits listening with one ear to some rather loud music and with the other to Ash regaling them with stories of his eventful childhood with an ungovernable twin sister. Slowly, he comes to realize that he is wearing half his clothes and half of Cas’.

“—which reminds me,” Ash continues, “of the time Father rigged the entire Boots Seven system’s chain of vector charts to malfunction in ascending order when triggered by the exit signals of the Kapellan cruiser fleet, sending them to Mother knows where, or nowhere, so they’d never get to the Ringworm front and Jo decides it’s immoral to kill alien life forms and sabotages the sabotage.

“Father had to run the entire malfunction manually while holding off enemy fire with only an Chevelle unit and Frank Devereaux to help him. And when he got hold of Jo afterward—”

Later standing on one of the tables but adamantly refusing to dance because Dean has the very clear feeling that Cas, who’s lounging in a chair at his feet, would think it undignified, he sees over the heads of his singing cohorts the door into the hall open and Bobby enter. He loses his equilibrium and falls to his knees. Cas springs forward to steady him and on seeing that Dean is staring past him, Cas turns.

Bobby walks the length of the hall, each footstep a damper on the volume until as he stops in front of Dean the entire hall is quiet.

“Ah. Dean.” He puts his hands on Dean’s shoulders and bestows a fatherly kiss on his forehead. Dean stares foolishly at him. “I’m glad to see you’ve been enjoying yourself.” The look he shoots Castiel as he swings Dean down to the floor is pure venom. When Dean collapses against his side, unable to keep his footing, the ship tossing and turning, Bobby gestures for Ash to help carry him. “But I fear we must go now. Captain Creaser is doubtless eager to resume his trip. You may follow, Angel,” he finishes with withering courtesy.

“I’m sorry Dad,” says Dean in a very faint, very small voice and he passes out.


	12. Chapter 12

Dean’s first coherent thought when he wakes is it would be a real bad idea to attempt to sit up. He does however open his eyes and shuts them immediately because the light’s too bright. From the brief view he did manage, he’s fairly sure he’s on the top bunk in Bobby’s cabin. He stretches his arms out, feeling with his fingers for the edge of the bed. Yup definitely a double, has to be Bobby’s cabin.

He can hear the murmuring of words, but can’t make out what they’re saying. What he can tell is that it’s Bobby and Cas speaking and they’re not happy. He must make a noise because he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Drink this,” Bobby orders. The cool rim of a cup presses against his lips and he drinks. When the cup’s removed he tries opening his eyes again. Bobby has a hand held above his eyes, shading them as Dean gets used to the light. He turns to look at Bobby, not surprised to see the sour expression on his face. “You think you can sit up?” he asks.

Dean props himself up and swings his legs out over the edge of the bed, but the floor is so far away that it makes him feel nauseous. He does that weird hiccup thing that sometimes predates vomiting. Color shifts around him and Cas is standing beside Bobby.

“He shouldn’t be up here,” Castiel directs at Bobby voice filled with disapproval. He reaches up and with deceptively gentle strength plucks Dean from the upper bunk and sweeps them both onto the lower. Dean shuts his eyes again, the movement doing nothing to settle his stomach. Castiel holds him, Dean’s head cushioned in his lap. “He should eat something,” he adds.

There’s a long pause. Dean’s head is pounding, the silence is worse than the argument that they’re not having.

“Get your hands off my son,” Bobby finally speaks, his voice taut.

Cas caresses Dean’s hair. “Your true colors are beginning to show, Singer,” he replies with admirable calm. “But you need to know, Dean and I plan to marry.”

Because his head is hurting so much, Dean thinks at first that he’s not heard Cas correctly.

“Angel, I’ll say this once and once only.” Bobby’s voice has the terrifying hauteur of a master challenged by a presumptuous clown. “First, you cannot marry a young man who knows nothing of the worlds you would perforce be taking him to, who knows nothing of _your_ background.”

“It isn’t _me_ who’s kept him in ignorance,” interjects Castiel reasonably.

“You know very well what I refer to. Second, by the laws of the Riven, he’s underage.”

“At twenty-five?”

“Majority’s not reached until thirty here, or the birth of a child for a woman, if that comes first.”

Castiel shifts beneath Dean. “And when did I say we’d marry under the laws of this region?”

“Third and most important,” Bobby’s voice is tight with anger, “I forbid it.”

“How old-fashioned of you,” says Castiel.

“Get away from him or I will…” Bobby breaks off.

“Kill me?” Castiel continues to speak softly, his fingers unceasing in their massage. “After all we’ve been through.”

Bobby’s voice drops almost to a whisper. “Do you think this is a joke, de Angelis? It isn’t.”

Dean feels Castiel’s arms tighten around him. “Who’d know better than me? You’re too late, my dear Bobby. Too late. Do you understand?”

The room goes silent and despite the nausea and the drums beating rhythmless patterns inside his head, Dean knows the only reason Bobby doesn’t strike Cas is because he’s lying between them. He opens his eyes.

“Get out.” Bobby’s eyes are fixed on Castiel. “Get out of here.”

Cas doesn’t move.

Dean breaks away from his embrace, staggering to his feet. “What’s wrong with you two?” he yells, realizing abruptly that if he doesn’t keep speaking, he’ll throw up. “I told you I wouldn’t bond with you,” he tells Castiel. “You don’t have any claim on me.” Surprise sweeps all trace of emotion from Cas’ face. “You never have. And _you_.” Dean shifts his eyes to Bobby and, somehow managing to trip over his own feet, he seizes hold of the corner of the bunk. “Whatever authority you might have over me, it doesn’t include legal authority. You have no right to determine what love affairs I might choose, or not choose, to have.” He walks to the door stiff with offended arrogance. He pauses while he waits for the door to open fully, turning to sweep the room with a final withering look. “Is that clear?”

He leaves, to what he believes will be a stunned silence. It’s therefore unnerving to hear Bobby start laughing as the cabin door slides shut.

He barely makes it to Jody’s cabin before he throws up. Sam with a minimum of fuss cleans him up and positions him comfortably in the bottom bunk. Owen sits by his feet while Dean eats bland crackers, one of which he throws at Baby when she starts singing ‘ _Sunday Morning Coming Down_ ’. Dean’s finishing his third glass of water when Jody and Alex enter.

“Had a wild night out, I see,” Jody cheerfully speaks at a just slightly louder than needed volume, chasing Owen off the bunk and sitting herself on the spot he’s vacated. “What’s _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ like?”

Dean shakes his head. “I’m not even going to try. Indescribable.”

“That’s cruel, Dean,” Sam pouts

Alex pours them juice, Dean included, then directs all of her attention on him. “They must’ve entertained you somehow, to leave you in such a condition.”

“Well,” Dean begins tentatively, “while Master Smith negotiated with their captain, we went to the mess hall and got into an argument and then…” He trails off, not sure if he wants to share the two very different recollections, one quite clear, the other confused by drink. “Twice,” he’s not sure if he should be appalled or impressed. “Twice.”

Jody laughs. “So you met and made quick work of one of them. Was she pretty?”

“He wasn’t…Isn’t…” Dean falters when Jody starts laughing.

“Oh!” Jody abruptly sits up in understanding then reaches over and pats Dean’s hand. “Well it’s not that much of a surprise is it. Not the way you two look at each other.”

“What gives them the right to squabble over me like I’m a piece of meat?” Dean tangents with sudden heat.

“Who?”

“Bobby and Cas.”

“Well, Dean, what do you expect from a couple of foreigners? And males at that? But you’re in good hands now.” Jody rises with efficient grace. Dean isn’t sure if he’s being insulted or not. “At least if we squabble, it won’t be over you.” She grins at Sam, who nods his agreement.

By the next day Dean feels completely recovered, although he avoids Bobby.

Castiel avoids everyone and Dean doesn’t seek him out because it is easier not to have to confront himself yet with the true scope of his feelings about Cas.

Bobby, however, seeks the brothers out for a workout. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Dean mutters as they stretch out afterward.

“I’m sorry you got so drunk,” Bobby scowls at him.

“So am I,” replies Dean with a grin.

“That isn’t quite what I meant.” He pauses. “Dean—” His hesitation makes him appear almost vulnerable, “about Angel—” Dean waits, uncomfortable and defensive now, but with a glance at Sam stretching against the opposite wall, Bobby sighs. “Never mind. You’re quite right that I have no right to tell you what you can and can’t do. But just remember, Dean,” his look is clear and direct, “you can come to me if you have any trouble, any problem.”

“I know,” Dean replies, but wonders why Bobby would think Dean would ever go to him about that. The thought of speaking with the person he loves like a father to discuss sex makes Dean shudder on the inside.

 

 

.oOo.

 

Bobby spends a few more sessions on the bridge, alternating between having Sam or Dean sitting with him. However, Dean can tell that every time Bobby calls Sam to join him, he’s worried about leaving Dean.

Dean suspects after the second shift Sam shares with Bobby on the bridge that he’s spoken to Jody, as they spend most of those shifts together.

In fact he and Jody have just finished sparring and they’re putting the rec room’s furniture back to rights when Jody tells Dean they are now finally just one window away from Central.

“It’s the other reason Central doesn’t regulate this route,” Jody tells him. “It’s so damned slow, it cuts your profit quick having to sit out here waiting for a clear window.” She eases down into a chair and lifts her bare feet up to rest on another. Her soles are leathery from the demands of a mercenary’s training.

“How’d you get to be a mercenary?” Dean asks as he hands over a bottle of water he’d brought in from the mess before they’d started sparring.

Jody grins, sipping at the water. “To get out of having children.”

“I wondered,” Dean shrugs. “Hired mercenaries don’t usually bring their dependents along on their jobs right?”

“ _Painted Lady_ isn’t your usual ship. Too large for the traffic she turns and too poor to pay a decent crew.”

“It must be a hard life for Alex and Owen.”

“Said most diplomatically, Dean,” Jody gives him a mock salute. “What you mean is how can they stand to be stuck in that tiny cabin all day? And how can I stand to leave them there?”

Dean says nothing, merely takes another drink, regarding the mercenary seriously.

Jody sighs more heartfelt perhaps than she realizes or perhaps Dean simply knows enough of her by now.

“I’m sorry,” Dean speaks. “I never realized until recently how easy my life was as a Sareno. What you’re doing can’t be easy for you.”

“Given the alternatives? I don’t know. Have you ever heard of Camberwell?”

“I’ve heard the name. Out beyond the Saladin route. Don’t they export Aris?”

“Among other things, yes. Camberwell’s a tidal planet, long hot stretches of sand flat that just go on and on and on.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine,” Dean says. “We never see the sun on Kansas. But we do have lots of sand.”

“The universal bane of machinery. Aris can only be harvested manually because of it. But Camberwell’s so far off the main routes that no one wants to immigrate there and with so many industries dependent on human hands, Camberwell’s just never had enough—hands, that is. They tried artificial wombs…”

“I thought artificial wombs were illegal.”

“Yeah, so are contraceptives,” Jody scoffs. “They don’t work anyway. Council settled on a different solution, they’d just trot us girls out at sixteen and get us pregnant.”

“You didn’t have any choice?”

“None at all.”

“Damn”

“I had a daughter at sixteen and a boy at eighteen. They were put in crèches. When the time came for my next go round…” Jody took a deep breath. “I was sick at the thought of doing it all over again. That’s when the Immortals came recruiting.”

Suddenly the hard core resting beneath Jody’s cheerful exterior becomes obvious to Dean. “Shit,” he says. “You’re an Immortal. No wonder you’re good. Hang on, I thought Immortals can’t retire.”

“They can’t,” Jody replies with a mocking smile. “I’m not retired. I’m a fugitive.”

“But we’re going straight to Central!”

Jody takes a drink from her bottle. “If you haven’t guessed by now, Jody Mills isn’t the name I was born with. And if I told you Alex’s whole name, you’d recognize it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a long story. After graduating from the Academy, I was stationed at Central and I moved up as one does, given a little effort. It’s actually rather an easy life being an Immortal.”

“Being celibate is easy?”

Jody chuckles. “Our commanders believe in the concept of ‘self-control through lack of opportunity’. We each got individual rooms which were more like cells really that we’d be locked into during our sleep shifts. A lot of us, at least at first, accepted the entire image of the Immortal. Including the idea that sexually frustrated men and women make better fighters.

“That’s an interesting hypothesis,” says Dean tactfully.

“Especially when we novices discovered that many of our colleagues were having affairs. For the women it had to be other women, because of the risk of pregnancy but the men might go either way. There’s also a prestige among the senatorial families and other high society folk in Central to have an Immortal in your bed of whichever sex, despite the celibacy rule. I don’t know, perhaps because of it. That’s how I met Alex.”

“Alex is an Immortal?”

Jody throws her head back laughing. Even in that movement, Dean could see the strict control she has over her muscles, precise in every motion. “Alex is the only child of a Senator. Among her friends it’s the fashion to lose their virginity to an Immortal, like it’s something simply to get rid of. But Alex was disillusioned with her life. She was only sixteen but old enough—no doubt on Camberwell she would have been old enough—to see the great gap between all her rich friends using contraceptives and all the young women who had no choice or no chance to use the same precautions. She’s not without courage, is my Alex, I never quite understood why she became friends with me.”

“You’re one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met,” Dean comments with all sincerity.

Jody smiles. “Thank you. Well, it’s a little more obvious why she fell in love with Mendi.”

“Mendi?”

“Mendiya Leyhaennin Mun. Of the Tollgate and Halfway Muns. A very rich family, a bit independent of the government, or at least they pretend they are.” Realizing she’s gone on a tangent, Jody pulls herself back. “Mendi is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Hair the color of the sun, skin like milk, his eyes… And his body. Well. How could anyone resist him?”

“Did you?”

“Course not. Strangely enough, he’s one of the Immortals who I was sure was really entirely celibate by inclination. I still don’t know to this day why he did what he did. Perhaps both Alex and I did attract him, but the truth is I suspect he did it simply to get thrown out of the Immortals. Do you want something to eat?”

Dean laughs. “I want to know what he did. But I’ll never say no to food.”

“I shoulda guessed that.” Jody stands and leaves the room, returning minutes later with ship’s fare.

“You should’ve seen the meal I had on _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_.” Dean sighs, but he takes the tray.

“You know it first happened at a feast. I’d just turned twenty-four. I’d been friends with Alex for about half a year. All her friends thought we were lovers, but that’s never been true. Anyway, Alex confessed to me how attracted she was to Mendi.

“Even within the Immortals we called him the Untouchable. There’re always those who are celibate because they’re so unattractive in looks or personality or in devotion to duty that no one wants them. Mendi just plain wasn’t available. I’d tried to cultivate him as a friend. He was never at ease but it wasn’t lack of confidence, more that he was holding an explosive secret inside himself. He had that kind of inner power. Damn my eyes, but he was gorgeous.” The memory softens her face.

“You make me want to meet him.”

“I’m not so sure.” The soft look fades, taken over by a cutting smile. “‘Faithless as a Senator’s daughter’, as we used to say is our Mendi. Although that’s not fair to Alex. Anyway, Mendi and I were part of the guard decorating this one particular function and I turned a blind eye to Alex’s arrangements to get him alone in a room upstairs. She can be as lovely as the dawn that girl when she puts her mind to it and she was for him. She’s never told me what she did, but it worked. He became as much as I suppose it’s in him to be infatuated with her.

“How it came that he propositioned me, I don’t know. But he did, one day and I refused. I couldn’t risk pregnancy. Alex had no contraceptives. She told me herself she’s against it if only the rich could have them. So I could scarcely ask her to get me some from her friends so that I could tup her male lover, whom she worshipped. But it got me to thinking about the Immortals and my time with them and my future with them and I finally just said, ‘Tup them all,’ and I slept with him.” She pulls her chair in leaning across the table, closing the space between herself and Dean even more.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “Making love to him was like killing someone, totally engrossing but without joy. I think he hated it, not me, not women, but the act itself. Or hated himself for wanting it.” She gives a short laugh, almost derisive and sits back. “But once you’re blooded you keep coming back for more.”

“And you fell pregnant.”

“I fell pregnant and not surprisingly so did Alex. I was found out soon enough. Much to my astonishment Mendi fessed up as soon as I was arrested and they jailed us both. Alex helped us escape. Pretty much did the job herself. Damn my eyes if Mendi didn’t squirrel off at his first opportunity and abandon us. That’s when I began to think he’d done it to get thrown out. So there we were, fugitives on Central. We had a wild time, but in the end we had to leave the system.”

“You went through a window pregnant?”

“More than one. Alex lost hers, of course. She almost died, I didn’t even get sick. At the requisite time, Owen was born. And here we are.”

“Damn,” Dean repeats from earlier.

“That probably sums it up as well as anything.” Jody grins. The intercom sounds a pattern of chimes. “Time to go.”

Dean pauses on his way to the door, turning back to face Jody. “You know Jody,” he starts a little tentatively, “we haven’t known each other very long but I’ll miss you.” He puts out a hand and Jody takes it a firm clasp.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” says Jody. “I wish I could give you the _Painted Lady’s_ code, so you could put a standby on it when you get settled in and I could call you whenever we’re back in here, but we can’t risk the regular channels. They’d trace us and haul us in quick as a window.”

“I know,” Dean nods.

The comm sounds again reporting vectoring range. “Come on,” Jody sends Dean forward with a slap on his ass. “Maybe I’ll still have time to make love to that blue-haired doctor of yours before we go over.”

Dean flushes, but very stiffly says nothing.

Jody laughs. “I don’t think you’re ready to share him yet, Dean, whether you know it or not.”

“Sorry, Jody,” Dean looks shamefaced. “Maybe you’re right.”

“About old blue-hair?” Jody puts an arm around Dean and hugs him. “Sure I am. I’ll miss you, too, Dean.”

They separate and Dean goes on alone to Bobby’s cabin. Stepping inside, he finds Cas sitting the length of the cabin away from him at the computer terminal. For an instant he hasn’t yet registered Dean’s presence. His face unguarded holds the stillness of one long-used to inaction, that quality of being past boredom, past fear, past happiness but also in the tiniest corner of the mind past sanity.

Like he senses him, Cas looks up. His eyes widen, taking Dean in and he stands.

They go through.

 

> _Blue hair with the ribbonlike fine texture of threads of silk. Skin bronzed like the sheen of well-tempered metal, but soft, yielding, scented as all life is scented. Lips like the brush of air. Dean’s name; said so, it defines him anew, from Cas’ lips: “You have risen to me out of the heart of light.”_

And come out.

Dean is in his arms, kissing Cas.

He jerks away from Cas and stumbles back against the door.

“Do you hate me so much?” Castiel asks.

“How did you do that?” Dean asks. “ _How_ did you do that?”

“Do what?”

He lifts a hand. “You were there over there and then—”

Cas laughs his face clearing and moves closer to Dean, drawing him against him. “I’m a ghost, Dean. I don’t exist. What for you is an instant, is for me an eternity.” Cas tilts his face up and kisses Dean, long and satisfying. “You don’t hate me, do you?” he asks at last.

“I never did,” Dean answers, feeling lost in the intensity of Cas’ blue eyes, but his voice shakes and he looks past Cas. He _had_ been standing by the terminal and then he _had_ been embracing Dean. There had been no time, nothing but the window, between those two actions. “You startled me.”

“I never meant to scare you, Dean.” Cas pulls Dean down to kiss him again.

The cabin door opens and Bobby stands in the entrance. For a timeless instant, like a window, none of them move. Then Dean gently disengages himself from Cas and turns to face Bobby.

“What’s the plan?” he asks.

“ _Painted Lady_ is docking at Frampton Station in two hours. Creaser is sending us planetside by shuttle before that, he wants us off quick and quiet. Go get your things and meet us by the lock.”

He mock salutes Bobby and with a kiss to Cas’ cheek he leaves to get Sam and their limited belongings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sunday Morning Coming Down** by _Johnny Cash_.


	13. Chapter 13

Through the viewports of the shuttle, Central appears in blues, greens and browns and the white tracery of clouds.

“It’s magnificent,” Sam says, leaning over Dean to see out the shuttles’ ports.

Dean grins, as enthralled as his brother by the view. Projecting his voice so he can be heard above the tumult of the engines. “It’s like a jewel. What’s all the blue?”

Bobby smiles. “Those are oceans.”

“Shit. That’s all water?” Sam pulls his face from the port.

“Water and sweet air and the hot summer sun. It is, I believe, early summer where we’re going.”

“Summer. That’s a season, isn’t it? What’s it like?”

Bobby considers this question for a long moment. He finally shrugs with a gentle grin. “To a couple of young men who come from a planet which has two seasons, freezing hard winds with dangerous avalanches and cold hard winds with catastrophic avalanches, I think only experience can answer that question.” He looks past them out the port at the growing land mass beneath. “By the way, the planet is called Arcadia. Central is the government center in the north. It’s different here from what you’re used to. Very different. Never hesitate to ask me any question.”

By now Dean can pick out surface features, flat plains, winding tracks of blue, mountains thrusting up into the atmosphere. What would Kansas look like, divested of its clouds? A barren wilderness of rock. He turns away from the port. “I do have a question. When you go through a window, it’s instantaneous, isn’t it?”

Bobby blinks. “That’s not quite the question I was expecting and I can’t really answer it. We perceive windows as instantaneous. However, there’s been a great deal of debate about the essence of a window in and of itself. For instance, is it in fact no time at all? Or is it outside of time? How do we account for the—the visions—that we have?”

“But people, they always experience windows as an instant?” Dean questions him.

“Most experts say it’s physiologically impossible for humans to experience them as anything but an instant.” He touches a finger to his lip considering. “But I’ve also read that some adepts, in certain forms of meditation, certain frames of mind, perceive a window as time. Perhaps time ain’t the right word. They perceive it as duration. I don’t know if there’s any way to measure it. I don’t even know if it’s true.”

“I think it’s true.” Bobby looks surprised and Dean leans closer to him his lips almost at Bobby’s ear. “I think Cas is one of them.”

He draws back. “By the Mother.” Bobby’s eyes flash to the blue-haired man sitting at the shuttle controls with one of the _Painted Lady’s_ crew members sitting beside him. “Dean, do you realize—” he frowns. “What if it’s true?” he says to himself, still watching Castiel. “Mother protect us. No wonder he’s so altered.”

“I thought you’d have known.”

“No. It must have happened since I last saw him.”

“When did you last see him?” Sam asks, not nearly as engrossed in the scenery as Dean had thought him to be.

Bobby waves a careless hand. “Twenty-five, thirty years ago. I can’t remember.”

Dean remains silent and turns back to the port. Castiel looks perhaps five years older than him. How old could he have been when he held off an entire battalion? When he saved Bobby’s life? How old can Bobby be? Rejuv exists but it’s expensive and not particularly effective. His own grandfather indulges now and then. But the technology that produced Baby and the sleek, massive bulk of _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ can surely produce miracles of life extension, can’t it? Central’s scientists are still searching and failing. What would they make of Bobby?

He feels Bobby’s hand on his shoulder and Dean remembers what he asked of them so long ago: ‘Trust me.’ Dean turns back and smiles. They spend the time remaining until landing talking about seasons, surface agriculture and breathing air beneath a cloudless sky without needing artificial aids.

The engines are roaring and as the shuttle slows, Dean sees an airstrip with two buildings set on a golden carpet and beyond that, the roll of hills. There’s barely a bump as they touch down.

“Are those trees?” he exclaims, nudging Sam pointing towards them. The engines power down to idle and Castiel turns from his seat in front to grin at Dean. They unstrap themselves, collect their packs and Baby and disembark down the shuttle’s ramp.

“Look! Cas, the sky is so blue!” he calls above the noise of the engines. Bobby takes his arm, drawing him away from the shuttle as he stares.

“Look! Are those flowers? They’re the same color as your lips! There’s no wind!” Sam, too, pauses and Bobby flicks his head at Castiel, telling him to hurry the younger Winchester along.

The shuttle’s engines swell to a scream. It turns on the airstrip and shoots itself into the sky. Dean stares at its arc into the infinity of blue, an arc fading into the golden, bright disk of the sun.

“Dean!” Bobby’s sharp tone causes Dean to look at him. “Don’t stare at the sun. You’ll go blind.”

“Oh.” He reaches down to brush tentatively at the grass with one hand. “It’s sharp,” he says, “but so light.” No one answers him but Sam reaches down and repeats Dean’s action. Looking up, he grins and nods his agreement. Dean fills with happiness that his brother is here sharing these new experiences with him.

As a group they walk across the clearing toward the two buildings. Beside Dean, Baby sings.

_“Sun is shinin' in the sky,_  
_There ain't a cloud in sight,_  
_It's stopped rainin' everybody's in a play,_  
_And don't you know,_  
_It's a beautiful new day,”_

Bobby and Castiel wait for the brothers to catch up. “Do you hear it?” he asks, stopping beside Cas. “There’s wind, I can just barely feel it on my face, but can you hear it in the trees? Like it’s whispering but something we can’t understand.”

Castiel laughs and takes Dean’s face, bright with discovery, between his hands. “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’”

“Is this a summer’s day?” Sam questions.

Dean finds himself looking into eyes that are as bright as the sun in the blue sky above them. Castiel laughs again and releases him. Turning, he sees that Bobby is frowning, but when he catches his eye Bobby smiles. The wind moves in his hair as a lover’s fingers do, with a gentle caress. On his face the sun feels like a warm hand, one entirely without pressure or possessiveness. He feels almost giddy. “It’s glorious,” he says and Sam agrees.

“We’d better wait for Baby,” Bobby notes. “She hasn’t gotten used to the elements yet.” Dean turns.

Baby is fishtailing in a most peculiar fashion, like the wind is upsetting her stability. Dean walks back to her and sets a hand on the curve of her underside. In the sun, Baby’s smooth metal surface normally cool to the touch feels warm. The pressure of Dean’s hand seems to steady her. By the time they reached the others, the robot has regained her equilibrium. She sings a merry accompaniment as they walk across the clearing.

Both buildings are unoccupied. Bobby rummages around, taking several blankets and filling his pack with food and a canteen that he finds in a dusty kitchen.

“Isn’t that stealing?” Dean asks.

“Yes.” He hands him the canteen. “Think of it as being for the cause.”

“Which cause?”

He considers Dean for a moment, but under his grave expression lies a stubbornness that reminds Dean how little he really knows of him. “Our survival,” Bobby finally says. “Where’s Angel?”

“Outside, lying down.”

“Getting a new tan already, I see,” mutters Bobby under his breath. “Let’s go.” They go outside. Dean has to blink in the sun. Castiel stands up, brushing grass from his clothing, he reaches a hand down and helps Sam to his feet. Bobby tosses Cas the rolled up blankets. “That’s your share,” he says. “We’re lucky this post is abandoned. Now we hike.”

Dean surveys the deserted clearing. “I thought… Isn’t this planet overcrowded?”

“It is. But most of the population’s in the north coast cities. All the agricultural zones are off limits except for workers.”

“Then won’t we be arrested?”

“Sam. On any planet with as many regulations and restrictions as this one has, there’s always a flourishing black market in goods, labor and unauthorized movement.”

“Ah, Singer,” Castiel ties the roll of blankets to his small pack. “Always so well informed.”

“And you can stop calling me Singer.”

“Mother bless us. What should I call you then?” Cas demands.

“Call me Bobby. It’s as true a name as Castiel or Angel I expect.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Castiel looks sly. “If Castiel de Angelis isn’t my name, then I’ve forgotten my real one.”

“Like Alexander Jehane,” Dean says. “That can’t be his real name. But I bet he’ll never tell anyone his birth name.”

Castiel laughs. “ _Alexander_ Jehane? Is that what he told you? Did his mother fall on a thunderbolt?”

“Cas.” Bobby looks, for a moment, much like a disgusted parent. “Let’s concentrate on business. Can you change your hair?”

“But it’s all the fashion.” Castiel touches his cheek-bone with a hand.

“Not on Arcadia, I think,” says Bobby.

Castiel sighs.

“I like it.” Dean grins. “But it is conspicuous.”

“Very well.” He manages a martyred expression. “We’ll see if you still love me with brown hair.”

It’s cool under the trees. As they walk, Dean discerns a hundred different noises blending into each other. The wind in its soft conversation with the trees. The snap of a branch breaking. The stuttering chitter of an unseen creature. The ground gives slightly beneath his feet, muffling the weight of his footsteps.

Later, a gurgling whisper approaches them, growing louder as they walk. Neither Bobby or Cas seem alarmed but Sam and Dean share worried glances. They come to it at last. Water, in a shallow rock strewn channel, rushing along like the wind given substance.

Castiel stoops to drink from it, exclaiming as his fingers touch it. Dean kneels. It’s bitterly cold. The water tugs against his skin. He can’t bring himself to drink from it, but he and Sam are soon splashing each other laughing until Bobby calls them back to order. They follow the stream down the slopes.

At dusk they reach the edge of the forest. Above, the first stars appear in the sky. Sam and Dean both stare up at them until again Bobby calls. They eat and afterward Cas leads Sam and Dean to the stream to wash.

“Wash in _water_?”

“Yes, Dean. It’s how most people wash.”

“Not in sonics?” Sam puts a dubious hand in the cold rushing flow.

“Most planets don’t have enough energy for that particular luxury.”

“We certainly didn’t have enough water on Kansas to waste it like this,” Dean remarks, but he washes his hands and face. They go back together and Dean grabs a blanket and lays down, Sam taking another and laying beside him. Bobby and Cas fall asleep immediately. Sam and Dean stare up at the interlace of shadowed foliage and stars in the black sky far above.

Dean wakes. It’s dark and the air smells strange, overpowering. There’s rustling behind them. He sits up, nudging Sam. Past the line of trees, on the border of the low hills, a steady light rises. Security’s found them. He’s half up to his feet when Castiel whispers his name, coming up behind him. He draws Dean back to trap him against his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Cas whispers.

“There’s a light…” Dean gestures.

He laughs under his breath. “It’s the moon,” he says. “Come with me.”

“Where’re we going?”

“‘Third base,’” his answer is cryptic and he puts a finger to Dean’s lips to still his questions.

Sam groans quietly and rolls over, quickly falling back asleep.

Cas leads Dean to the edge of the trees. Wind sighs in the branches above them. There’s two moons, one tiny but definitely rounded, already halfway up the sky. The second just coming over the horizon. As they watch, it clears the hills and shines its muted splendor.

“It’s the crescent.” He turns to look at Cas. In the moonlight, his eyes shine like they’re polished silver. “That’s the shape that he painted on his face, under his eye. In the picture that you—that the other man—showed me of Bobby.”

“So it is,” Castiel agrees not looking up at the moon at all.

“What does it mean?”

He smiles. “It’s one of Ellen’s signs.”

Dean looks at the delicate curve of light hanging in the air. “It’s beautiful.”

“As are you, Dean.” After a time Cas shifts, moving into Dean’s line of sight so he is looking at Cas instead of the moon. “‘Turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.”

Dean looks up at Castiel’s face, half in light, half in shadow. Cas is far older than he looks, Dean knows, and his words themselves have the texture of an ancient time, beguiling Dean across an immense gulf of history.

“You were quoting someone then weren’t you?” he asks. His voice fading into the air around them.

“Shakespeare,” Cas utters, his voice delicate as the brush of wind. “It’s from a rather a sad play. But the words paint their own image of beauty.”

“You’re beautiful,” Dean whispers.

“Ah, well.” He eases Dean down with him onto the blanket he’s had the foresight to spread out on the ground. “I’ve always looked my best under the kinnas wheel.”

“What’s the kinnas wheel?” They tangle, weight half on each other, long lines of warmth pressing together. Cas’ breath on his cheek. His lips touch Dean’s.

“The wheel of the night.” His voice is so low it seems not to come from him at all. “They call it the honor that patterns you. But also,” Cas kisses his throat and Dean sighs, slipping his hand up to cradle the back of Cas’ neck, “the promise of love.”

  


.oOo.

  


For the next two days they hike across fields empty of human life, except for the occasional shuttle high overhead and, once, bulky slow moving machines appearing briefly in a choreographed line on a distant ridge. Half-ripe crops wave in soft breezes so alive under the wind’s hand that Sam and Dean debate at first if these are animals. But some of them Castiel and Bobby can name, kilometers of wheat, vast rustling patches of corn, convincing them of their vegetative nature.

And animals are everywhere, creatures of the air, creatures burrowing down into the dirt or scurrying away through the green. Part of the time they’re fascinated by this riot of free, uncontained life. Other times, the uncleanness of it all revolts Dean. Castiel rigs hoods for them to protect their faces from the sun. His own bronze skin deepens in color. Bobby’s ubiquitous hat shades his own face.

On the third day they find an irrigation pond. Reeds choke the shore except for one bank that runs from wild grass to pebbles lapped by water. Under the sun, they’ve broken into a sweat unrelieved by three day’s march. Castiel and Bobby look at the water, look at each other and, with whoops and cheers so foreign to their characters that Sam and Dean stop in their tracks to stare, they rush down to the bank.

By the time the brothers realize that the blue hollow is entirely water, the two men have stripped and plunged in. The sounds of their bodies striking the water is like a slap, startling Dean out of his amazement. He turns to Sam to make sure that his brother is seeing the same thing he is, but he turns back almost immediately, unable to look away from Castiel and Bobby.

Water drops spray off of them as they laugh. Bobby, like he’s walking on the hidden bottom, strikes out for the far shore, gliding like a gear through oil, arms working about his head as if he’s constantly pitching some object in front of him.

“Sam, Dean.” Castiel stands several meters from the bank. Water slips off his chest and shoulders to dissolve back into the water around him; it covers him just up to his sharp hip bones, leaving the hard line of his abdomen bare. He smiles and beckons Dean closer. They walk down the bank stopping just shy of the water’s edge. “Are you coming in?” he asks, his voice pitched to include them both, but he’s eyes only for Dean. “The water’s fine.”

“Your joking,” Dean scoffs. Bobby’s vanished around a curve in the pond. Behind them, Baby sinks down to rest half hidden in the grass.

“At least take off your boots,” Castiel speaks persuasively. “Feel how good it is on your toes.”

Sam looks at Dean and shrugs, he pulls his boots off and steps into the water. Dean quickly follows, not wanting to be shown up by his younger brother. The water feels deliriously cool.

“You must be terribly hot,” Cas cajoles.

He is. Fine sweat eases itself down the back of his neck, running down his back. His shirt and jeans are too heavy for this climate, but Bobby’s insisted they keep them on to prevent sunburn, whatever that is, only allowing them to remove their plaid shirts. “No,” he refuses with dignity, “I’m not getting in that water. It must be filthy.”

Castiel laughs, but he creeps closer to Dean. “My darling,” he says. “I can run faster than you.”

“I suppose,” Dean concedes, admiring Cas as he wades another meter toward him. The water level falls noticeably and Dean forces himself to look away. Sam cries out in warning but it’s too late, Castiel has already run out of the water and grabs Dean.

“Now,” his eyes glow mercilessly. “Either you take those clothes off, or I’ll throw you in while you’re still wearing them.”

Grumbling, Dean agrees, taking his clothing off slowly until he’s standing just in his underwear. Sam, bless him, has stripped down as well. But before the brothers have a chance to move, Cas picks Dean up, charging into the water and, still holding him, collapses into the water.

The water closes around him, like thick air, like nothing he has ever felt before. It splashes his face, into his open mouth, but strong arms hold him securely pulling him further in. Water laps at his hips, belly, chest. Cas holds him like a child cradled against his body. He shifts standing, adjusting his hold on Dean so his legs slide down until he’s standing in the water too.

“Well?” he asks, still holding Dean tightly to his chest. “If it’s awful,” he says, “you can get out.”

Dean shakes his head. “It isn’t awful,” he says, “it’s … it’s …” Words fail him.

Castiel laughs. With a sudden twist and plunge he disappears beneath the surface. The water ripples and he erupts from it several body lengths away from Dean. “Come over to me.”

He wants to shake his head. Wants to turn back and make sure that Sam is okay. That he too has made his way into the water. As he starts to turn to do just that Sam steps up beside him. “Bobby would say ‘It is our limitations that train us.’” Sam grins at him.

They move together deeper into the water, ignoring Castiel for the moment. Dean is intrigued by how intensely seductive the water feels, its smooth fluidity caressing his skin. The water tugs at him. Each step pulls against him like G-forces are being expended to stop his progress.

As they close in on Castiel, Sam veers away to the left, walking towards the line of reeds, muttering something about his ‘virgin eyes’ as he does so. Dean scoops up a handful of water and throws it at him, hitting Sam squarely in the back of his head. Sam throws his hands in the air but doesn’t stop walking away.

Cas’ arms catch him in a slippery embrace. “That’s my warrior,” he says with admiration. Dean honors him with an intensive kiss made more fervent by the brush of water against their bodies.

“Cas!” The shout from Bobby breaks them apart. “Damn you to hell, Angel!”

Dean sinks low into the water until it covers him to his shoulders, lapping at his neck. Unexpectedly body shy in a way he hasn’t been since he started training with Bobby all those years earlier.

“I’ve already been there,” Castiel calls out cheerfully. “Anywhere else you’d like me to go?”

Bobby doesn’t reply. Instead he swims past them, looking like all his pleasure in this outing has been destroyed. Castiel smiles.

“He doesn’t want us to be lovers,” Dean finally puts into words what he’s known since he left Bobby’s cabin after their trip to _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_. “Why not, Cas?”

Cas kisses him. “Typical father. He’s shocked by your sexuality, my love.” Dean pushes away from him, but he only laughs. “We’d better get you out of the sun. You’ve gone quite pink.”

They head to the shore where Sam and Bobby have already dried off and are partially dressed.

That evening, they come upon a work crew.

“Wait here.” Bobby motions them to lie just below a bluff that looks over the field on which the workers, perhaps a hundred of them, spread far across its green leafed and yellow flowered expanse. They’re engaged in some arcane activity Dean can’t decipher.

“What’s he going to do?” Dean whispers.

“What are these people doing?” Sam asks at the same time.

“Picking strawberries?” Dean’s upset that Cas answers Sam first.

“What’s a strawberry?” Sam continues his questions

“It’s a long story.”

“It could be aris.” Dean rubs his lower lip thoughtfully.

“What is aris?” It’s Cas’ turn to ask

“Got you at last. I don’t think it could be, anyway. Not from what Jody told me.”

“Don’t you know what it looks like?”

Dean shrugs and Sam takes it on himself to answer “We’ve only seen it processed.”

Castiel stiffens just as Bobby appears with a redheaded woman.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Bobby reassures them. “I’ve found a Jehanist nest. This is Jessica. They’re going to help us get to the city.”

Her face is weathered and her hands are calloused and dirty. The look she turns on Sam and Dean is rapt. “You’ve met him?” she breathes. Dean nods, deciding now isn’t the time to mention he’d shot him. “It’s an honor to help you, in your mission for Jehane.”

“Ah, yes,” mutters Castiel under his breath. “Our mission.”

Bobby’s done his job well. For the next two days they work in the fields, getting a crash course from the workers on weeding supirina bushes, a delicate and time consuming task whose fruits, in both senses of the word, will be received only by those well-to-do enough to afford the wine the supirina blossoms produce. At some point Castiel has manages to turn his hair color from blue to a muddy brown.

On the third day the shift changes and it’s as easy as that. At Jessica’s suggestion, Dean conceals Baby in a lean-to where old equipment rusts. With Bobby, he and Sam program the robot to wait for Dean’s return, when a method can be devised to get Baby into the city without attracting Security’s attention. Then, surrounded by their quiet allies, they board the workers’ rail and are racing across a blur of countryside into the city. Dean catches a glimpse of it, brown haze and a wall of buildings, before the rail goes underground. It roars along, echoing darkly around them. Castiel seems nervous. He puts his arm around Dean and calms. Bobby spends the trip consulting with Jessica over directions.

The workers disperse at a large station. With a final exchange of words and a comm-screen for Bobby, they leave their benefactress and ride a series of trains into a labyrinth from which Dean doubts he could ever find his way out. Bobby eventually leads them off a train and up, passing turn gates, passing incessantly chattering screens with news and weather and inexplicable dramas, passing individuals lounging in dirt along the concrete tunnels, passing uniformed Security, up escalators, into the sun again.

It’s the same sun, but the view’s changed. There are buildings, a street clogged with traffic, pedestrians, bicycles and mopeds along with a few trucks bearing cargo. Dean had thought Station on Kansas’ moon was crowded but it is nothing compared to this crush of humanity. It stinks here too but it’s a fetid flavor, torn now and then with gusts of a freshening breeze. The buildings, towering over them, have thousands upon thousands of windows that double the activity. Vehicles, people and unseen machinery roar about them. Security personnel patrol in marked vehicles, on motorized two-wheelers and on foot in pairs. Sam and Dean walk so closely together that their shoulders brush against each other constantly.

“And to think there’s so much land out there.” Sam complains as they follow closely behind Bobby.

He must have heard, because he turns to say something to them when he stops abruptly. “Where’s Castiel?”

They all turn around looking for him, heading back the way that they’d come. They find him standing twenty meters behind them. He seems to be staring at an invisible figure directly in front of him. Dean pushes past a clump of people, grabbing his arm.

“Cas?” His eyes shift to Dean’s and his hands clamp onto Dean’s arm. His mouth opens, but no words emerge. “Here,” says Dean briskly. “Put your arm around me. That’s right. Now let’s go.”

Bobby comes up beside him and takes Castiel’s other elbow. “This way,” he says. “Turn here.”

They turn off the main street, Sam directly behind them. Castiel’s face loses some of its blank eye stare and he abruptly disengages his elbow from Bobby’s grasp.

“Well, Castiel,” says Bobby, but he confines further comment to an exchange of glances with Dean. “Turn here again. And look for Abigail Street.” Sam spots it first and they turn. “Twelve-oh-one. Twelve-oh-seven. Here we are.” The doors automatically open when they stop, then shut behind them, the noise from the street fading and cut off. Bobby examines the directory. Castiel withdraws his arm from Dean.

“Floor twenty-one. We’ll take the elevator.”

They come out into a small hallway flanked with two doors. One is blank. The other bears the letters ‘Abigail Street Academy’. In the anteroom a young man sits behind a counter typing into a terminal. He looks up. “May I help you?”

Bobby presents an amiable smile. “We’re here to see sensei Barnes. She _is_ expecting us.”

“Of course.” The young man looks uncertain. “She should be in gym one.”

“Thank you.” Bobby leads them into a hallway. “Gym Four. Three. Locker room. Locker room. Quite an establishment. Puts mine to shame.” He winks at Sam and Dean. “Two. Here we are.” He pushes open double doors and they follow him inside.

The first thing Dean notices is the wooden floors, then the wall of mirrors at one end of the room, the other walls are near white. Rolls of mats lay against the far wall. A woman sits cross-legged in the middle of the room, meditating. Her head lifts at the sound of their entrance. Her entire body tenses as she stares.

“Bobby! What the devil are you doing here?” She climbs to her feet.

“Pamela. My dearest—sister.” He motions for them to stop, moving forward alone, his arms open. “How kind of you to receive us.”

She spins away from him and places a smart kick directly into his abdomen. He gasps, hard, but he doesn’t go down.

“Are you trying to get me killed?” she hisses. “Are you insane? I told you never to come back here.” Her stance as she faces Bobby is implacable. “I’ll give you one minute to explain. And one minute after that to get the hell out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mr. Blue Sky** by _Electric Light Orchestra_.


	14. Chapter 14

For a moment there’s silence until Pamela Barnes looks past Bobby and sees Castiel. “Jesus and Mary,” she whispers. “Angel?”

“Still Catholic, I see,” he replies.

“One is always Catholic, Angel,” she snaps but the fear on her face subsides as she examines him. “Good Lord, you’ve changed. What happened to you?”

“That,” Bobby draws in his first breath since being kicked, “is a long story. Is there somewhere more private we can talk?”

“My office.” She appears to be resigned to her fate. “Who are these?”

“My sons Sam and Dean.”

This explanation at least has the advantage of keeping Pamela in stunned silence for the walk to her office.

“Now,” Pamela says as she settles into her chair. Her eyes keep straying to Castiel like she expects to see him sprout wings. “I found you to a quiet place where you could lie low in return for you not bothering me. I don’t want your trouble, Bobby.”

“My trouble, as you so pleasantly phrase it, having found me, is most certainly looking for you too, Pamela.”

“Most certainly,” echoes Castiel with a sly look.

“The peace lasted longer than I expected,” Bobby continues. “But all I’m here for is to ask you take Sam and Dean on as instructors, to apprentice them, just for the time we’re here on Arcadia.”

“Just like that?” Pamela scoffs. “You walk in here, jeopardizing my cover and my Academy and expect me to apprentice both of them? Are they qualified? Do they have ID? Visas? Extensions for employment? Are they even citizens of the Riven? Come now, Bobby. Let’s be reasonable.”

“My dear Pamela,” says Bobby soothingly. “Getting IDs and visas are the least of our problems—as you know perfectly well.”

“Still can’t take both of them as instructors. It’d raise too many questions. Same problem if I take on two new students.”

“What about one of each? Dean as an instructor now, Sam as a student in a week or two,” Bobby offers.

Pamela frowns. Dean watches her. She’s a slender woman, but despite her size she has every appearance of being as hard as the metal-sheathed walls of Campbell House, impervious to the storms outside, utterly self-contained. “Why, Bobby?” she asks at last. “Convince me.”

Bobby smiles and settles with a pleased sigh into the deep padding of his chair. “My sweet Pamela,” he begins. “We’re in terrible trouble.”

“Angel, for one thing, what else?”

Cas grunts a protest.

“Yes,” Bobby agrees. “Angel for one thing.” His smile disappears as he examines Castiel who is reclining in an awkward pose at Dean’s feet. “Most important,” his tone now grave, “the Illustrious is dead.”

Pamela’s face hosts a quick series of expressions: disbelief, sorrow, fear, resolving into determination. She crosses herself. “So they’re coming after us at last.”

“Oh, yes,” says Bobby. “Just about everyone, now that the Duke is no longer alive to cast his mantle of protection over us.”

“I see.” Pamela fixes a look of acute suspicion on Castiel. “And what brings you here, Angel? Where have you been all these years?”

“In prison,” he replies in a most agreeable tone. “A foolish mistake, but it only takes one.”

“And how did you get out of prison?”

He smiles with great sweetness. “I recanted. I was accounted a classic figure of rehabilitation and sent along with the expedition the League sent out here to round the last of us up, but, do you know, when my eyes fell on Bobby, I realized how dreadfully bored I’d become, so I left with him and his beautiful son.”

“Bobby! Have you lost your mind?” Pamela stands up. “Do you trust him?”

“Course I don’t trust him,” Bobby answers. Castiel offers them a brief, if ironic, salute. “But what choice did I have? I couldn’t leave him.”

Castiel cuts in, “But you wish you had.”

“I certainly do,” Bobby agrees. “I certainly do.” He looks at Pamela. “He won’t betray us.”

“If he hasn’t already?” She turns cold eyes on Castiel. “How much did you tell them?”

Castiel lifts a hand in careless dismissal. “You know how terribly weak my memory is,” he drawls.

“I expect it improves under drugs.”

Dean can see by his face that Cas is annoyed. “You know those drugs don’t work on me.”

“That’s true,” she mutters. “But then why in Heaven’s name did they bring you out here with them?”

Castiel stands abruptly anger radiating from him. “Because with all their fine philosophies of conflict resolution and nonviolence and rehabilitation for criminals, they’d rather not admit that they created us, you, me and _Master Smith_ , the rest of our kind. That they created terrorists, saboteurs whose creed had to be violence. They’d rather not admit to the ways we won that war for them, calling us heroes. Hating us, shunning us, fearing us. All at the same time.”

He spins away furious yet so contained that Dean fears for his control. Fears this hidden depth of rage in him. “Still, _still_ , Pamela, they can’t believe our kind still exist among them, our kind, who choose violence first, not caring if we kill our enemies or ourselves, mouthing these sick, weak phrases of rehabilitation and then casting them off without a second’s regret. They expect us to stop, like all that training can be negated. Of course they brought me out here with them. They’ve forgotten that we lie as easy as we kill.”

Pamela moves out from behind her desk and over to Castiel. He doesn’t move, it’s like his words have drained his anger leaving him frozen without any further emotion to direct his actions. She lays her hand with surprising tenderness on his bronzed cheek.

“Sweet Jesus,” she says in an undertone. “My poor boy. What have they done to you?”

He turns his face away from her hand and sinks to the floor beside Dean, resting his head against his leg. Dean shrugs under Pamela’s keen eye, but he moves a hand nevertheless to rest lightly on Cas’ head, burying his fingers in his hair. Against him, he feels Cas’ shallow quick breaths slow and deepen.

She returns to her chair behind the desk. The plain white walls of the office frame her as she examines her visitors. Behind the desk hangs a large poster advertising the Abigail Street Academy.

“So the League rousted you out?” Pamela looks at Bobby.

“No. The chameleons rousted me out.”

“Good Lord!” She puts her hands over her face, lowering them after a moment to lie clasped in front of her. “I thought I’d never have to see another one of them.”

“I let them capture me so I could get a look at what they had. Just the one cruiser so far, I believe. Out for blood, of course. But they don’t know the League’s out here, too.” Bobby chuckles bitterly. “I didn’t know the League was here ‘til I tracked down Sam and Dean, who’d come after me, believing that I had been kidnapped. But they, along with Angel and two colleagues, were in Jehanish custody at Nevermore.”

“Jehanish?” The light on Pamela’ hair has a way of catching on the darkest strands as she turns her head. “There’s a well-known writer here, name of Athena, who publishes underground and causes all sorts of agitation.”

“Dean even met Jehane,” Bobby shoots him a mocking smile. “We had to exit in some haste. Talking with Angel on our way here, I discovered the League’s in contact with the Riven government.”

“And what does Angel know about this?” Pamela asks, acid in her tone.

“Nothing,” Cas doesn’t move, his voice is partially muffled against Dean’s leg. His eyes remain shut. “They just brought me along for the ride.”

“I’m satisfied that’s true,” Bobby says. “But we haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”

“Do tell,” Pamela’s smile is caustic.

“We met Ellen Harvelle, following the trail of the chameleons.”

Pamela laughs. “Happy tidings for the Riven, for where Ellen leads the rest of the privateers shall soon follow. Bobby, if this is all true, why didn't you just go with Ellen? Why come here?”

“Because I want to know what the League is saying to the Riven government in Central and how long they’ve been in contact. We can’t run forever, Pamela and damned if I’m going to live the rest of my very long life cooped up on a pirate ship, no matter how luxurious.”

“Groundhog,” Pamela grins. “All right.” She leans back in her chair. “Our interests are obviously aligned for the moment. How are you planning to find out all this pertinent information?”

“I’m going into Central.”

“Good luck. Security’s tight as a bull’s ass in fly time.”

“Fetching phrase, Pamela.”

“Oh, I’m just a peasant at heart.”

Bobby grunts. “No wonder you’ve survived so long. But really, getting into Central’s not what I’m worried about.”

“No, you wouldn’t be,” Pamela replies, her eyes following Bobby’s to Castiel.

Castiel’s eyes are still closed. Dean ascertains that with a quick glance and is astonished by the look exchanged by Pamela and Bobby. It could’ve been spoken, it’s so blatant: ‘What, _he_ won’t be going in with you?’ And Bobby’s look in reply, negative and sad. Sam and Dean share their own silent conversation.

“What are you planning to do, Cas?” Dean asks to cover the silence.

“I’d like to practice medicine again,” he opens his eyes and looks up at Dean. “But I don’t have a license for this region.”

Pamela considers this. “I don’t know. It’s not like you can hand them your Oxford diploma as verification, and it’d take years to go back through school.”

“No school,” Castiel says.

She shakes her head, pensive. “They’re desperate for help in the community clinics. Most poor people never see anyone higher than a med-tech anyway. If you pass the medical technologist exams, they might offer you a visa extension. Even with the massive unemployment, they still can’t fill those positions…”

“Long hours, bad conditions, poor patients,” Castiel smiles. “How much actual supervision by physicians is there? In the worst clinics?”

“I don’t know. I don’t imagine there’s much. You’d probably have pretty free rein. It’d be as close to battlefield conditions as you could get on a peaceful planet. But it doesn’t pay well.”

Castiel replies, “Any real occupation would be paradise for me.”

“How long were you in prison, Angel?” Bobby asks gently.

Castiel’s penetrating stare focuses on the other man. “Sixteen years, seven months, three days. I can continue to the millisecond.”

“I believe you,” murmurs Pamela her look is full of pity. “What about Sam and Dean?”

“Haven’t I convinced you?” says Bobby. “They stay here.”

“They can take their chances, like Castiel. There must be other work they can do.”

“There isn’t,” Dean says. “Sorry.”

“Just consider, Bobby,” continues Pamela. “To give Dean instructional duties, to pay him any credit at all, he’d need to go on the employment rolls. To get on those, he has to have an extended worker’s visa. Legalities. He’d never get a visa extension for this work—I have to hire from legal Arcadian citizens. You don’t understand the magnitude of the problem on this planet. Why do you think Jehane is so popular here?”

“If we don’t help each other, Pamela, then we’re all lost.”

Pamela says nothing.

“Pamela,” Bobby starts again slowly. “Is there no other way to make them legal?”

“An extended student visa for Sam, set him up as an off-world transfer,” Pamela nods slowly. “But Dean? Maybe if you Bond him to a permanent resident.”

“Of course!” Bobby stands up. “I should have thought of that.”

“No! Dean cannot bond with anyone.” Castiel jumps to his feet and Pamela, perceiving trouble, stands as well.

“Castiel,” Dean’s voice is calm, reasonable, “sit down.” They all regard him with astonishment when Castiel sits. “Obviously,” Dean continues, “a long-term economic bond is out of the question. But a child-directed pair-bond—after a year, when she hasn’t conceived, it would automatically be dissolved.” He looks at Bobby. “Is one year enough time for what you need to do?”

“Yes,” he agrees.

Dean turns his eyes to Pamela and, seeing a smile caught just below the older woman’s expression, he favors her with a quick wink. “So where can I find a partner?”

“That depends on how many credits you have to spend, or what political beliefs you’re willing to… embrace.”

“Damn,” says Dean. “I’d no idea it’d be so easy. But the only other person I’ve heard of on this planet is that writer, Athena.” He grins. “And if she’s a Jehanist, she’s hardly likely to want to bond the man who shot her leader.”

Bobby looks thoughtful. “An agitator,” he murmurs to himself. “That might work.” He cuts off Dean’s question with a wave of one hand. “So, sensei Barnes, you’ll take them?”

“You make my life difficult, Bobby,” Pamela sighs. “I’ll see them through their paces first.”

“Where can we warm up?” asks Sam, speaking up for the first time.

“Gym Three.” Pamela turns and removes two garments from a cabinet. “Here’s gi for you both.”

“Thank you,” Sam takes the clothing from her and hands a set to Dean. “Are you coming with us, Castiel?” he asks and isn’t surprised when the man follows without a word.

“Well,” Pamela says. “They do you credit.”

Bobby smiles. “You haven’t seen them do their forms yet. They’re much better than I deserve. But thank you.”

“Bobby.” She sits on the edge of her desk, one leg dangling and regards him seriously. “How many of us are left?”

“I don’t know. Fewer than you imagine, I fear.” He sighs, pacing a slow circuit around the small office. “Ellen had some information. They say Hannah, Eileen, Jesse and Cesar are still at large.”

“Bucky?”

He shakes his head. “Dead. Gadreel as well.”

“May the Lord bless and keep them,” she murmurs, crossing herself. “Aaron?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gabriel?”

This surprises a laugh from him. “Mother’s Breasts, Pam, they’ll never catch him.”

“Annie Hawkins?”

Bobby sobers, turning to face her. “Now there’s an interesting case. According to Ellen, both her and Rufus have turned bounty hunter and are existing on the edge of the law, but legally.”

“Huh,” says Pamela. “I’d hate to have one of them contracted out on me. Asa? Krissy? Josephine? Mirabel?”

He shakes his head. “Dead, captured, or broken. It’s been a sad toll. I only know what I heard from Ellen.”

“The bastards. Castiel is right about their gratitude. Good Lord, how’d he get out of prison?”

“He recanted. Evidently they believed him.”

“Castiel can charm his way out of a snake pit. Jesus—” she laughs, “he did, more than once.” She stands and goes to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. They stand close and easy together. Physically, they appeared to have little to nothing in common. But their eyes, in expression, the set of their faces, their posture, reveals some bond, some long, difficult road of shared experiences that binds them as tightly as any blood tie. “Why isn’t Castiel going into Central with you? What’d they do to him in that prison?”

“I wish I knew, Pam,” he says, soft as the room ventilators. “All I know is that according to Ellen’s sources, he was in prison for twenty years, give or take a month.”

“And?”

Bobby waits for Pamela to consider.

“But Castiel said sixteen years and he’s never wrong.” She removes her hand from his shoulder, troubled.

“What were those axioms we had? Loud as Richie. Drunk as Rufus. Ugly as Zachariah.”

“Irritable as Bobby.” They both laugh, Bobby sobers first, but it’s Pamela who continues. “Sharp as Angel’s mind. If they had him in solitary, he might have lost track.”

“Our Angel? Who feels the rhythms of the universe in his body? The pulse of the stars in his blood? ‘Body is soul, spirit is flesh and all thus combined touches the universe, no separation.’ We could put him down on any planet, in any system and he could tell us the hour and the day and the season. No. When he says he was imprisoned, most of it in solitary, he admits that, for sixteen years, seven months and three days, he means sixteen years, seven months and three days. Pam he’s lost three and a half years of his life. They no longer exist in his mind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He told me he suspects all the clocks and calendars were set forward on his release in order to confuse him into revealing information.”

“Very amusing.”

“He was completely serious.” Bobby sits himself on the edge of the desk, watching her now as Pamela paces, “So you see why he’s not going in with me.”

“My God,” she says.

“Oh.” He raises an admonitory finger. “And I almost forgot. Dean thinks he doesn’t perceive windows.”

“That’s ridiculous. I was on the Gesie run with him. He hates windows—instants he can’t measure as time. He gets ill from them.”

“Not any more. Dean says he moved three meters inside a window.”

“Sweet Jesus, Bobby,” she turns her back to him, staring up at the Academy poster, a woman forever frozen with the ridge of her high side kick touching the recoiling chin of a man falling in graceful lines to a white floor. “What’s he become?”

He scowls watching the straight proud line of her back. “Something more like his mother I think, and little enough we know about her kind.”

“Enough to know that her kind never lie.”

“I expect that particular habit we can credit to his human half.”

“Bobby.” The flat calmness of her tone snares him halfway to standing, an immobilizing gesture. “Can we really trust him? My God, when I think of the things… What if he really did murder Balthazar? His best friend! We never had any proof.”

“Only April’s insistence that he was innocent and we all knew what her word was worth. I still remember the smile she had on her face when she said it. But Pam, by the Mother’s Heart, we can’t abandon him. I can’t abandon him.” He stands completely. “He won’t betray us.”

“Let me rephrase that, in the time-honored fashion. Do you trust him with your own son?”

“Too late, I fear,” Bobby’s voice has the barest trace of self-mockery. “He’s already slept with Dean.”

She whirled. “Jesus and Mary, don’t joke—dear God.” This last in a whisper. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

He meets her eyes. “I’m ashamed to admit, Pamela, I never expected it. Not until it was too late.”

He moves to stand behind a chair, running one hand along its smooth back. Pamela waits. “You’ve no idea how quickly he acted. How could I’ve expected that? You know how he was. It took three _years_ of April courting him, before she finally persuaded him to her bed.”

“And fifty-two seconds,” Pamela adds, “holding her dead body in his arms at Betaos, to go berserk. You were there.”

“Yes and so were you, Tamara, Gadreel and an entire chameleon battalion.”

“‘But that is in another country,’” says Pamela. “Don’t change the subject.”

“By the time I realized… How in the Mother’s Name could I’ve stopped him? What can you threaten him with?”

“You could’ve warned Dean.”

Silence. His hand stills. “Yes. I could’ve warned Dean, with the half-truths we know and the rumors we can only guess might be true. But I could’ve. If, Pamela, _if_ I’d expected him to be interested.”

“He’d been in prison for twenty years, for God’s sake. Don’t think the rest of us have your low sex drive, Bobby.”

Bobby laughs unexpectedly. “Pam he’d been out of prison three or four years already and if that was his only impulse, he would’ve acted on it long before he met Dean and we wouldn’t be discussing this entire subject. Besides, when have you ever heard of a Je’jiri bonding with someone of the same sex?”

She pauses, taking in a breath for another volley of words and sighs instead. “His sexuality is only half-Je’jiri the other half is human. Oh, you’re right, you couldn’t have expected it. But why did he want Dean? Appearance couldn’t be enough to sway him, not when he knows what the consequences are—if not to Dean, then to himself? You said it yourself. ‘Body is soul, spirit is flesh, there’s no separation.’” Silence settles over the office until Bobby, moving, shatters it.

“Why does Castiel want anything? I don’t know. I only hope the choice isn’t entirely mercenary on his part.”

“To get your protection? Maybe that was his motive to begin with. It will have gone far past that by now. And Dean, he’s so young. How could he’ve resisted Cas? When he can turn the full force of that half-alien charm on him?”

“How, indeed? I didn’t know you were attracted to him, Pamela.”

She laughs. “I wouldn’t touch him with the proverbial ten-foot pole. What are you going to tell Dean?”

“About Castiel? I don’t know the truth about Angel. He needs to take that responsibility himself.”

She comes to stand beside him, lays a hand on his unlined face. “Do you ever feel old, Bobby?”

He smiles. “But I know the secret of immortality Pamela.”

“And your children are beautiful.” She smiles. It transforms her face as a bud, opening into flower, is transformed. “No wonder Castiel couldn’t resist Dean, being as he’s Bobby Singer’s son.”

“Flatterer,” says Bobby.

She kisses him on the cheek. “Let’s go see him, this prodigy of yours.”

  


.oOo.

  


In Gym Three, Sam and Dean limber up while Castiel paces. Mercifully there’s no mirrors to reflect the unfortunate mixture of anguish and hostility on his face. Sam’s taken up position in one corner, obviously trying to pretend that he’s not in the same room as them.

“You can’t do it!” Castiel exclaims.

Stretching on the floor, Dean sinks into horizontal splits, bent at the hips to touch his chest and face to the polished wood planks. “Why not?”

He stops, spinning to face Dean who pushes himself up to look at Cas. “Because I love you!” He crouches beside Dean, reaching for him as if to pull Dean to him.

With an impatient gesture Dean waves him away. “What other alternatives do you suggest, then?”

Castiel says nothing, turns half away. Dean’s struck again by the high sweep of his bone structure, the suggestion of delicacy that Dean can’t reconcile with his strength. “Cas,” he begins, attempting now a reasonable tone, “a one year bond is such a temporary thing. It won’t mean anything anyway, it’s just to get me a visa extension.”

Cas looks with melancholy fascination at the opposite wall. “I’ll probably kill her,” he speaks as if to himself.

“Cas!” He leans on his elbows, frowning up at him. The lack of self-pity in his despondency disturbs Dean. “I probably won’t even sleep with the woman.”

Like a drowning man who has seen a life raft, his face brightens. “Promise me, Dean. Promise me you won’t.”

“Shit.” He rolls up to his feet. “I’m probably whistling down the wind the sexiest woman I’ll ever meet,” he says to the ceiling. He slowly walks over to Castiel. “All right. I promise.” Dean puts out a hand for him to shake. With a trace of confusion, he does so. “Now will you stop acting stupid?”

“You don’t love me,” he says, but it’s not an accusation, merely a bald statement.

“Castiel. I haven’t even known you a month.”

“Is it one of the other two that you love?”

Dean drops his hand. “I beg your pardon?”

“One of the other two men you slept with before you met me.”

Dean looks around the room to stare at Sam as he talks to Cas. “I never told you I’d slept with two other men.” Sam, seeing the accusation on Dean’s face, shakes his head vehemently denying that he’d broken his brother’s confidence.

Cas smiles, more like himself now, full of smug confidence. “You didn’t need to.”

“Bobby couldn’t have told you. He didn’t even know one of them.” Dean stares at him. “Can read my mind?”

He shrugs at a loss. “But it’s there—it’s…”

“Yes?” Dean asks sweetly.

“I can’t explain it, Dean,” he says in some distress. “It’s like a—I don’t know…” He shakes his head, his wild mop of hair like a symbol of his confusion. “I can just tell,” he finishes with complete finality.

“Any other revelations?”

“Actually,” Cas lowers his eyes to examine the grain of the wood, raising them finally, shining blue, to look at Dean, “there are.”

The door opens and Pamela and Bobby walk in. A look suspiciously like relief flies across Castiel’s face. With a brief apologetic smile he retreats.

“Alrighty Sam, Dean,” says Pamela. “Let’s see what you can do. Kata first.”

Sam and Dean move to the center of the room and bow. But after the third kata, Pamela waves at them to stop. Bobby is failing in his attempt not to look smug. Castiel watches Dean with possessive interest.

“Oh, all right, Bobby!” Pamela bites in her most irritable tone. “You needn’t smirk at me.”

“But…” Dean falters, “I…”

“Oh, Dean,” Pamela interrupts impatiently. “If you don’t know how good the two of you are, you’ll soon find out. Bobby, you offend me.” She observes that Bobby is coughing into his hand. “You can stop laughing.”

“You’re taking us? Both of us?” Sam asks.

“Like I said, it’d call too much attention to hire two new instructors. Although you’re both better than half of my current staff,” Pamela wipes a hand through the air in front of her, like she’s sweeping any objections aside. “Less questions if Sam joins as a student, like Bobby suggests. Of course, students normally pay to attend but I’m sure Bobby can sort out a scholarship.”

Sam manages a reserved bow to sensei Barnes, which she returns with awesome formality.

“Dean’s appointment needs to be contingent upon his obtaining a visa and a bond with an as yet unspecified female citizen of Arcadia. He’ll be issued three gis and forwarded enough credit for a week’s food and lodging. There’s a good hostel on Bettina Street where you’ll be able to reserve a two room suite.” A disapproving glance for Castiel here. “Dean, you’ll begin as an assistant. Progress will depend on your enthusiasm and ability to follow direction. This Academy has a reputation to uphold. You’ll report at oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow. Is that clear?”

Dean bows.

“What name will you be using?” She directs this question solely towards Dean.

“Dean?” he ventures.

“First names are unacceptable,” Pamela grins.

Dean considers serious at first, but his eyes meet Bobby’s and his lips quirk up slightly. He bows. “Smith, if you please, sensei Barnes.”

Pamela laughs. “You’re as incorrigible as Bobby. So be it, sensei Smith.” She salutes him with a slap on the back. “Go on. I’ll see you tomorrow and Sam in a week. Though I won’t, I hope, see either of you gentlemen here again.” The last to Bobby and Castiel.

Castiel offers her an elaborate bow, Bobby grunts an agreement.

  


.oOo.

  


They find the hostel on Bettina Street with comparative ease and install Sam, Dean and Cas there in a suite. Three tiny rooms, if you count the washing cubicle which Dean is horrified to find is water based. The bedroom contains a bed not much more than a meter wide and a metal clothes cabinet. The main room, which the other two open off, is only slightly larger than the bedroom. It has a terminal on one wall, a small folding table with two folding chairs sitting around it and a sofa that folds out into a bed for Sam, but only if the table and chairs are folded and hung from the wall.

Sam and Dean share looks. The entire suite is smaller than either of their rooms in Campbell House but Castiel is so cheerfully stowing his possessions in the cabinet that Dean feels he can’t complain about their surroundings. “What are you going to do?” he asks Bobby.

He sits at the table watching Cas through the open doorway. If he has any misgivings about this arrangement, he shows no sign of them. “First I’ve got to get you and Sam IDs.”

Castiel coughs, turning from his work and surveys Bobby with cold civility. “I think I can manage for myself and Dean,” he says.

Bobby considers him a long moment, thick thighs leaning against the cabinet and he sees with sudden clarity the three features that really mark Castiel as half-alien, for him at least. The smoky blue hair perpetually messy, because it’s growth pattern doesn’t mimic a humans. The distinct glow currently hidden in his blue eyes, ready to burst free and burn brightly at any moment. And more subtle until you knew what to look for, the slight elongation of his body which covers thirteen pairs of ribs. “Very well, Angel,” he says. “You can of course do for yourself, but we’re not arguing over Dean. Or Sam for that matter.”

Castiel frowns, but he says nothing.

“Then,” continues Bobby, like the matter is settled, “I’ll fetch Baby. After that I believe I’ll hunt down Athena.”

“Why Athena?” Sam asks. “It seems to me that she’d be hard to find and terribly suspicious.”

“I’m not sure I want to ally myself with Jehane in any fashion. He’s…” Dean shakes his head, “not my type. I like to think for myself.”

“Don’t think of it as allying with Jehane,” answers Bobby. “Think of it as expedience. Athena’ll serve very well precisely because I believe I possess the means to convince her to agree.”

The days fall into a pattern. Dean wakes and goes to the academy, works out, observes, begins to be allowed to instruct. Returning to the hostel to eat in the common room with Sam and Cas, they then retire to the privacy of their room. Dean begins to feel, inexplicably, that Cas’ need to touch him is more physiological than emotional, like Dean is the one drug he can become addicted to. Still, Dean feels disinclined to complain, especially when Sam gives him those irritated looks.

On the fifth day Dean returns home to find Sam and Baby, but no Castiel. Sam had gone downstairs to get something to eat for them both and returned to find Baby here and Cas gone.

The brothers and Baby enjoy a musical evening together while they wait. When Castiel appears, very late, he shows them their new comm-screens. They’re credited to Dean Smith, Sam Wesson and Castiel Seraphim. He has also, he tells Dean, applied to take the med-tech exam.

The next night Castiel insists Baby goes into the washing cubicle for the night, closing both doors while he and Dean have sex.

They sleep late, waking to Baby serenading them from behind the closed door:

_'Cause when the loving starts, and the lights go down,_  
_And there's not another living soul around,_  
_Then you woo me until the sun comes up,_  
_And you say that you love me._

Castiel delights in kissing Dean. “I’m marking you out as mine,” he tells him, like it’s a private joke only they can share. When the intercom buzzes, they can hear Sam and Bobby talking.

“I’ll be up in ten minutes,” Bobby says over the crackle of in-house static. “I have a visitor with me.”

Dean has them both dressed in five. The door lock chimes and Bobby enters.

“Well, Dean,” he says, looking at Cas’ hair like he knows exactly what he’s just interrupted., “I’ve brought Athena.” He turns and beckons.

Baby retreats into the washing cubicle. Athena is neither beautiful nor plain. Until she smiles, then all the intensity she wears like a mask falls away. Her smile is warm and all-encompassing and she stretches out her hand to shake his.

“Dean Smith?” Her voice is light. “Your guardian mentioned an arrangement that might be beneficial to us both.” She does the cutest thing ever at the mention of the arrangement, she blushes. “Actually, my name is Dorothy Baum,” Athena continues, “Athena isn’t my real name, just my pen name.”

“Athena,” says Castiel acidly from his reclining position against the wall, where he’s examining Athena in minute and unimpressed detail. “How original.”

“It’s not actually,” replies Dorothy Baum with cheerful sincerity. “I stole it from an obscure history tape. And who are you?” she asks, glancing at Dean.

“This is Castiel Seraphim,” he says hastily. “He’s a medical technologist.”

“Indeed!” Athena puts out her hand. “And where do you work?”

Castiel pushes off from the wall and shakes the proffered hand with extreme reserve. “I hope,” he says in his most reserved tone, “to be working soon in one of the Ridani districts.”

“That’s marvelous! And I should add, min Seraphim,” she continues, with a shrewd look at Castiel’s aloof expression, “that since my sister recently vacated the second bedroom in my apartment out in the Malvern District, it would be convenient for all of us, if Dean and I do indeed reach an agreement, that you and Dean might then share that room.” Athena seems, remarkably, to be entirely free from artifice.

“And Sam?” Dean asks, not willing to leave his brother behind.

“There’s a small alcove I use to write and we can move things around and fit a bed in it I’m sure. Now, Dean,” she grins, evidently having worked out all of their sleeping arrangements, “shall we all go walk in Teapot Park and discuss this business further?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Say You Love Me** by _Fleetwood Mac_.


	15. Chapter 15

“Shit,” Dean says, handing a wet plate to Dorothy to dry, “if you’re going to call a general strike, I’d better assign myself as your bodyguard.”

Dorothy laughs. She has an easy laugh, quiet and good-natured and is more likely to laugh at herself than at others. “Sometimes I think you think I can’t take care of myself,” she says.

“After living with you for almost six months, Dorothy, I _know_ you can’t take care of yourself.” But he smiles, taking any sting from the words. “I can’t decide whether you live on luck or on good intentions.”

“I live on Jehane’s cause,” she says, serious now. “And as long as I’m needed for his work, I shall live.”

Dean, returning her open look, wonders for the hundredth time what it is Dorothy sees in Jehane, in the same Jehane who alarms Dean, to make her cast her devotion, her energy, her life so absolutely at Jehane’s feet. At first he’d assumed Jehane merely hypnotized Dorothy into his service as he had, in some sense, attempted to hypnotize Dean, but he’s long since given up that theory as too simplistic. He shrugs and washes another plate. “It amazes me Central hasn’t arrested you yet,” he says finally, “especially after all those protests you engineered last Autumn because of the tax increase. Not to mention the riots in the Ridani districts.

“I’m not responsible for riots, Dean.”

“Not yet, not on purpose anyway. Central did bring that one on themselves, considering they canceled the entire range of pregnancy credits for Ridani women. What did they expect? Poor Cas, stuck at the clinic for sixteen days, with all the injuries and the curfew.”

“Certainly I blame Central.” Even in private conversation she declaims, like some secret audience only she knows about is always watching, or as if Baby, humming now at her usual place plugged into the apartment terminal, is recording her. “For introducing pregnancy credits in the first place two hundred and fifty years ago. Without any provision for ending them once the population rose high enough, of course we would reach a point of dangerous overcrowding, having institutionalized the very reward system that brought us to this pass.” She finishes with a flourish of righteous dismay Dean has come to recognize in her delivery.

“But, Dorothy, there had to be some way for the colonists to push the population up. There were so few of them.”

“My dear Dean,” she grins. “Nature long since provided a way to increase the population. It’s only because both you and your physician are men that you’re not increasing the population yourselves.”

Dean throws up his hands, spraying water drops across the counter. “You win! You win! I should know better than to argue politics with you. How do you know Cas is really a physician, anyway? He’s been at such pains to present himself as a mere med-tech.”

“I’m afraid he only told me as a sop to his pride. I hope I don’t offend you, Dean.”

He considers. “No, I don’t think you do, actually. I don’t understand Cas at all, not really.”

“I wonder if he’s difficult to understand, or whether he doesn’t want to be understood,” she replies and regards him expectantly.

Dean thrusts his hands back into the cooling water. “Let’s not talk about Cas right now. I’ve been mad at him all evening.” Dorothy’s expectant look doesn’t waver, except for one eyebrow quirking upward. Dean smiles a little one-sided. “I guess I asked for that. Maybe I’ll feel less guilty if I tell you.

“We went out for a drink after classes, me and four of the other instructors. Did you ever meet Cassie? Anyway, she’s good-looking, uncomplicated, about my age and we’ve been flirting on and off ever since I started there and—” he pauses. Dorothy smiles encouragingly. “It didn’t go that far,” he says, “a little kissing, I mean and I don’t see what business Castiel has dictating what I do with my body. It’s not like we’re bonded.”

Dorothy laughs.

“You’re laughing at me!”

“You’re feeling guilty, aren’t you?” she asks.

“So I’m all hot and bothered and he’s not even here when I get home!”

“Thoughtless of him.”

Dean laughs. “Especially considering the long hours he works. You know, Dorothy, I think you’re the most nonjudgmental person I’ve ever met.”

“I judge injustice,” says Dorothy, “not humanity.”

“Finished.” Dean puts the last plate on the counter. “What else can I do before the neatest person I’ve ever met arrives and yells at us for being slobs?”

It’s a mistake to ask Dorothy lighthearted questions when her mind is on revolution. “Sam took a courier run earlier but I still have two others, you could take one of those for me,” she offers. “One needs to be in Coniston by tomorrow evening. It’s a data crystal. They’re setting up a new underground net to broadcast. It’s got the codes they need.”

“Is this to replace the one the Immortals destroyed last month?”

Dorothy looks stern. “They murdered three citizens. This kind of thing cannot, will not, be allowed to continue.” For a moment she stares into the distance at a vision Dean can’t see.

“And the other one?” Dean asks, reminding her he’s still here.

“Yes. The other one. I need someone to meet with the district organizer from Richmond. This is a bit more difficult, since you need to pass documents both ways.”

“From Richmond? That’s the district Cas works in. Is the contact a Ridani?”

“Yes and that makes it doubly difficult. But the rendezvous is set for a three-di bar, where you can expect to find a few Ridanis outside of their own districts.”

“Gambling? I used to watch the three-di tournaments on the nets, so I may as well see them in person. I see the strangest places working for you.”

“Not for me.” Dorothy looks almost embarrassed, as at an honor she feels she is not worthy of. “For Jehane.”

“I don’t do this for Jehane,” Dean tells her. “Don’t ever make that mistake, Dorothy. I do it for you.”

“You only say that because you haven’t met him.”

Dean hesitates. He’s avoided the topic of Jehane whenever it’s come up previously, but now… He has after all known Dorothy for almost half a year now. “I have met him.”

“Then there’s no question. You found him inspiring.”

“I don’t think that’s the word I would use. I found him…” Words fail him. Dorothy’s face, so free from guile, bears its usual expectant expression as she watches him. _Baby_ , he whistles. _How did I find Jehane?_

Across the room, he sees lights stir on Baby’s gleaming surface. She retracts a plug from the computer terminal and rotates to face Dean and Dorothy. Athena’s desk, a couch and three chairs separate them, Sam’s bed in its alcove behind her. “Dean,” she says in Paisley’s voice, “it is my belief that you found him forgiving.”

“Just so,” states Dorothy. She dries the last dish with a final flourish.

But Dean’s chuckling quietly to himself. “I’ll help you, Dorothy. If for no other reason than the favor you did me by agreeing to the bond.”

“It’s hardly a favor, Dean,” she says.

“What do you mean, it’s—” He stops. Walks to the couch and sits down. He experiences so sudden a rush of illumination that he wonders how he could have gone so many months without realizing. Because of the initial exhaustion of his work at Pamela’ Academy? Because of Cas, who draws him more and more into his strange sense of expectation that he and Dean have the bond and not Dean and Dorothy? Because of Dorothy herself, whose unshakable friendliness might mislead one to think she is completely altruistic? Baby floats up next to him. “Damnit. He traded me for something. And I don’t mean credit. He made a deal with you, didn’t he? Dorothy!” He stands up. “Do you know where Bobby is?”

“In Central.”

“I know that. I mean, are you in contact with him? Can I talk to him? Dorothy! He just disappeared one week after we got here, told Sam and I to stay quiet and wait patiently and just disappeared. He didn’t even tell us what he was going to do.”

The apartment door opens and Castiel enters.

“Castiel!” Dean asks. “Where is Bobby?”

He stops. “‘To darkness are they doomed who devote themselves only to life in the world.’ Frankly, Dean, I neither know nor care where Bobby is.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Ah,” he says. “Kiss me before you make such a pronouncement.”

“I don’t know how you can work for twelve hours in that clinic and come home in such a good mood,” he says in disgust, but Dean goes to him.

For an instant Cas returns Dean’s kiss with his usual enthusiasm. Then he stops himself, recoiling violently away from Dean.

A sense of anticipatory stillness falls over the room. Dorothy takes a step back. Dean freezes.

Castiel grabs the back of the nearest chair, lifting it in a single swing up over his head and bringing it down full force to the floor. The sound shatters the silence.

“You should show me some respect,” Cas growls, moving towards the computer.

Baby, in a brilliance of light, places herself in front of the terminal. Dean leaps forward and pins Castiel’s arms to his sides. Dean uses every trick dirty and clean that Bobby ever taught him, but Cas is twisting from side to side, trying to throw him off like Cas is entirely unaware of who he is and Dean feels his hold slipping.

Then Dorothy is there. They push him toward the couch, but their hold is tenuous. Castiel struggles against them but Dean can tell, even with as wild as Cas is raging, he’s not doing anything that would hurt Dean. However, he’s not showing the same consideration of Dorothy and Dean almost loses his grip on Cas blocking an attack meant for her.

Baby sings out a warning, an appendage reaching out to Castiel.

“Let go of him,” Dean orders and jumps back. Dorothy follows just in time to miss the flash of light.

Cas slumps down onto the floor, still conscious but stunned.

“Into the bedroom,” Dean says and he and Dorothy half-carry, half-shove Castiel into the room, shut and code the door locked.

For a moment, they simply stare at each other panting. Baby hums in possessive agitation before the terminal. Finally Dorothy walks over to the chair. The force of the blow has scored scars into the floor and the plastic supports have fractured. One’s shattered.

“Good thing he didn’t get to the terminal.” She uses two hands to right the chair. “I had no idea he was that strong.” She picks up the shattered remains of the support and stares at it pensively.

From the bedroom door comes a slight sound. Baby stops humming.

“Dean.” It’s so subdued they barely hear it. “Dean. Forgive me.”

He goes to the door, lays a hand on it. Baby sings a question and Dean shakes his head.

“Dean. You can’t touch other people, Dean, not in that way. You have to understand that. Please, Dean. Don’t do this to me.”

He touches the first half of the unlocking code into the panel.

Dorothy sets the plastic support onto the shattered chair. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“No. But better to find out now, rather than when I’m not prepared.” He opens the door.

But Castiel merely pulls him into his arms and begins to kiss him like he means to imprint himself indelibly on Dean, to the exclusion of all others. After a few moments of this, Dean feels it prudent to shut the door behind them.

Dorothy regards Baby with a look remarkably like a conspirator’s. “Can you get a message to Bobby?” she asks.

Baby blinks her lights, speaking again in Paisley’s voice. “Affirmative. It is my experience, however, that the timespan necessary to achieve contact without exposing the master’s masquerade, if you desire to speak with him directly rather than through the masking channels he and I have devised for exchange of our usual flow of information, will be of a rather longer duration than you are perhaps hoping for.” Two more lights blink. “Given the circumstances.”

“Let him know,” says Dorothy. “But don’t jeopardize his cover. The information he’s sending us is too valuable.”

“Affirmative. It is my belief, if I may be allowed to express one, that my Dean will prove himself perfectly able to defuse the current situation.”

“It isn’t the current one I’m worried about.” Dorothy goes to her desk and picks up the notes she’s been scrawling on. “It’s the future ones.”

Baby sings something incomprehensible, stopping abruptly.

“But,” Dorothy continues, “I have a speech to write. Can you take it?”

Baby settles next to the desk with a melodic phrase that sounds remarkably like pleased anticipation. “Affirmative,” she says.

Dorothy stands silent for a long moment, glancing once through her notes. The mantle of Athena rests lightly over her shoulders and she speaks.

“Workers of Arcadia. Our rights as citizens have been disregarded too often. Central has imposed taxes on us that are not in force in Central itself. Central has cut power to our homes. Central has drafted our young men and women into their own military expansion—against what enemy, I ask you, but the very workers who feed them? Central has spilled our blood when we have protested legally against the measures they enact to prevent us from exercising our right to vote. It is time we act directly against these measures and all the others like them. We are two billion souls, citizens. We are strong. We are righteous—”

  


.oOo.

  


“—we will not let the threat of Central’s troops, let the threat of the Immortals, deter us. We will work without violence to bring Jehane’s revolution to Arcadia. To bring his reforms, his hope, to the Riven. Jehane will come. He will bring justice. But, comrades, it’s up to us to prepare the ground on which he will stand. Join me, on the first day of Spring. Join me, in sending a message to the Senators, to the Immortals, to the government in Central. Join me. Strike.”

Athena’s voice echoes out from the terminal, alive with passion, altered today to sound like an older man, but still obviously Dorothy’s voice to those who know her.

Castiel reclines on the couch, smiling with a slight mocking glint in his eye. “That’s very good, Dorothy,” he says. “Although I’ve always preferred mine with fire and brimstone.”

“Fear is only used against your enemies, not your comrades,” Dorothy tells him. “I’ll not make a mockery of the workers who risk their lives in this cause.”

“Is that coming out of the underground link at Coniston?” Dean asks quickly. “The one I ran the codes to two weeks ago?”

“It is.” Dorothy smiles. “You did a difficult job well, Dean. I know Security has been watching for that transfer, but you avoided them.”

“He must take after Bobby.” Castiel turns his head to regard Dean. His dark hair, cut short during the riots, has grown enough to curl around his ears. “Frightening thought.”

“It could be worse, he could be taking after you,” retorts Sam, and Cas smiles. “What time do we need to leave, Dorothy?” he asks.

“You don’t have to come with me,” she says, for perhaps the fifth time.

“We want to.” Dean rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“I dislike seeing you miss so much time at the Academy.”

“It’s true sensei Barnes has been lenient,” Dean shrugs, Sam nods in agreement. “Frankly, as much as I’m learning in my work there, there’s something missing, some element—I’m not sure. I like helping you, Dorothy.”

“Of course you like it,” says Castiel in a quiet voice. “You’re Bobby’s son.”

Dorothy frowns.

“Furthermore, Dorothy,” continues Dean briskly, “you don’t make public speeches very often and Security has got to be out looking for you. Even if they do think you’re a committee of ten writing all those broadcasts and news sheets, they still want someone they can hang as ‘Athena.’ You need bodyguards.”

“Very well,” she assents. “Let me change.” She goes into her bedroom.

“‘ Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.’”

“That’s very good, Castiel. Are you helping Dorothy write her speeches?” Sam looks across the room.

Castiel smiles slightly, like he would laugh but doesn’t have the energy for it.

“It’s funny,” Sam continues. “Dorothy devotes her life to Jehane’s cause, but Jehane’s never been on Arcadia. He’s never spoken in front of angry crowds, with Security ready to come in at the slightest provocation, or risked getting arrested for setting up yet another underground news network. To the people on Arcadia, Athena is Jehanism. But I’ll bet you that if Jehane ever succeeds, Dorothy won’t get a hint of the glory. She won’t even ask for it.”

Castiel shrugs. “A megalomaniac like Jehane succeeds on the strength of his followers’ sincerity,” he says.

“Is that another quote?” Dean asks.

“Maybe I’ll come with you,” Cas says. “Baby can guard the home front, can’t you, my dear?”

A single light blinks from Baby, but the robot doesn’t deign to turn away from the terminal or otherwise acknowledge Castiel’s statement.

“She’s addicted to that machine,” Sam says with disgust.

“She’s on it constantly. I can’t understand why our electric bill isn’t higher, except I’m afraid Baby fixes it,” Dean agrees.

“We all have to be addicted to something.” Cas regards Dean with an unreadable look.

Sam stands up as Dorothy reenters the room. “Let’s go.”


	16. Chapter 16

Outside, a cold wind hits them and Sam goes back to get his jacket. Cas, Dean and Dorothy stroll into the community park that fronts their apartment block to wait for him.

“How many do you expect to join the strike?” Dean asks. He and Dorothy stop just inside the park. “It’s hard to believe tomorrow will be the first day of Spring.” He bends to brush the grass with an open hand. That cold air alone made the green plants wither to brown was something he’d never conceived of, nor the slow budding to life as the weather grows warmer. It’s like the air itself carries some virus, growing and dying.

“What I expect and what I hope… It’s hard to separate the two. But first of all we need the transport workers to strike, because then there’ll be an inconvenience to Central and the Senators will take notice of us.”

“Haven’t they already?”

Dorothy smiles. “As a nuisance, perhaps. But Security hasn’t yet moved against Athena. The mythical Athena, who’s no one man or woman, but all women and men. That’s why Athena can’t die.”

Dean looks away, out over the pond. The wind has died away. The water lies like frosted glass in an unbroken surface, catching the distant reflection of treetops and apartment windows on its even surface. Castiel continues walking towards it, giving them some privacy.

“Dorothy. What deal did Bobby make with you?”

“I thought it was all understood, Dean. I really did.”

“I believe you. Of all people, I believe you, Dorothy. But why am I always the last person to whom it’s all understood?”

“I assume that’s a rhetorical question. I thought Bobby told you.”

“I know he got a false ID, that he wanted to work in Central to get information. That anyone wanting to work in Central, especially to gain employment in the kind of classified position he must need to get what he wants, would also have to live in Central and expect their movements would be closely watched. That’s what I know. I thought he dropped us off at Pamela’s Academy, that you in your vast kind-heartedness took us in. But that’s not the case, is it?”

“You and your robot form a vital link, Dean. I thought you knew.” She shrugs.

“Baby and I?”

“For several years,” she explains, “I’ve attempted not only to break into Central’s computer systems, which is difficult but not impossible, but also to get the information I obtained out of Central.” Dorothy takes a deep breath. “That had proved impossible. Then I was assured that your guardian was a master of such techniques. He promised to feed information on Jehane and his movements. Movements tracked on Central’s classified strategy computers, out through your robot and into my hands.” Her voice betrays her excitement. “And he has. This information gives me an incalculable advantage in working for Jehane’s cause here on Arcadia.” She’s grinning now. “For instance, the last transfer included a bulletin from Kansas, where Central evidently uncovered a large Jehanist nest and carted the entire group off to the nearest prison planet.”

“Hexham. Sam and I know someone there, the Ridani girl we met and lost. But an entire group from Kansas! Shit. I wonder if we knew any of them.”

Dean subsides into silence. From a distance they must look like parting lovers, he with his hands crammed in his coat pockets against the cold, head bent in seriousness, but eyes lifting to catch her words. Her leaning against a lamp post, almost like it alone supports her, hands resting lightly on her blue-clad thighs.

“I hope you’re not disappointed in me, Dean,” Dorothy says at last.

“In you?” He smiles, rueful. “No. Maybe a little bit in Bobby. You’d think he’d trust us, trust me, with more knowledge.”

“In this line of work, Dean. Knowledge can be dangerous.”

“So can ignorance. Ignorance can kill. For instance…” he says, eyeing Cas as he leans against the waist high fence built there, Dean’s been told, to keep people out of the pond. Why anyone might want to go into it, filled with filthy water, Dean doesn’t understand, nor how such a low fence can restrict access to it.

Across the road the door to their block opens and Sam emerges. Castiel, seeing the younger brother, starts walking back towards Dean and Dorothy. “This is none of my business,” Dorothy hurriedly speaks, “and I say it only out of concern for your well-being—” She falters. Uncertainty is so unlike her that Dean can only stare. “Do you love him?”

“Love him?” Castiel advances toward them, the increasing wind tugging at his hair, his hands hidden in his pockets. “I don’t know. How can you love someone who’s never told you the truth?”

“You love Bobby.”

Dean smiles. “And it seems to you he has as many secrets as Castiel?”

“Doesn’t he?”

“But Bobby’s always told me the truth—not much of it, granted.” Sam reaches them first, nudging Dean in the shoulder. “I trust Bobby, Dorothy. I always have.”

“So trust is necessary for love?”

“It must be.”

She shakes her head. “You’re speaking with your head. That’s your flaw. If I may be presumptuous enough to say so.”

“You will anyway,” he says with a grin.

“You don’t act enough from your heart.”

“Don’t I? Maybe you act too much from yours.” Dean cups his hands in front of his mouth, blowing hot air into them for warmth.

“Perhaps. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been charged with that particular failing.”

“Which failing is that?” Cas asks as he reaches them. He removes a hand from his pocket and closes it around Dean’s hands, drawing them down.

“Perfection,” Sam answers.

Castiel smiles, as genuine as it’s possible for him to be. “I’m sorry, Dorothy,” he says. “But I’m afraid that the only cure for perfection is death.”

Dorothy laughs. “Isn’t that the only cure there is? Shall we go?”

  


.oOo.

  


The meeting’s held in Clarendon District. A stage has been constructed in a warehouse. From his vantage point at the back and to one side of the makeshift construction, Dean can look out over the crowd. Dorothy sits next to him, her eyes closed, in perfect stillness. On his other side, Cas sits elbows on knees, examining the crowd, with Sam next to him.

“I don’t like this,” Cas whispers. “It smells like a setup to me. Did Dorothy arrange this from the ground up? Or was she asked to speak here?”

“I don’t know.” Dean looks at Sam and he shrugs. Dean looks down at Dorothy, but doesn’t want to disturb her meditation.

“Did you see the light switches as we came in?”

“The ones just behind us?”

“Yes.” Beyond, the crowd stirs restlessly, perhaps two thousand souls, as a dark woman speaks to them from the stage. Several other speakers, finished or yet to go on, loiter backstage or sit near Sam and Castiel, Dean acting as a buffer for Dorothy. “We’ll split up,” continues Castiel. He speaks in an undertone, so quiet that even Dorothy, were she listening, might not hear. “Dean take the lights. Sam, I want you at the exit. I’m going to get as close to the microphone as possible. If anything happens, we’ll have to act fast.”

Dean leans into him, lips brushing his ear like he’s nuzzling Cas affectionately. He angles his face just so, so Sam can hear his words as well. “You think Central Intelligence set this up? To bring one of Athena’s voices to light?”

“I don’t think anything,” Castiel shifts so Sam can see his face and read his lips, in case the younger brother can’t hear the words he breathes out. “But I know this line of work. Haven’t you heard the Boy Scout motto, ‘Be prepared?’” He lets a hand slide up Dean’s waist, caressing him.

Sam asks, “What’s a Boy Scout?”

Castiel pushes Dean away. Dorothy’s standing, she gives each of them an intent nod and, to the accompaniment of fevered applause, walks out onto the stage.

“Comrades,” the woman on stage proclaims, her words merging with the crowd’s roar of approval, “I give you the woman who speaks for all of us. Athena.”

“I’ll get the lights,” says Dean, his voice almost drowned by the cheers. Castiel nods, he and Sam already moving.

“—Comrades! I am not Athena. All of us are Athena. All of us speak out against injustice, against—”

Dean finds the lights, stands by them listening. “—we will show Central, we will show our Senators, we will show the Riven, our disapproval. They will attempt to make us fight. This is a peaceful strike. With peace, we will win. Do not fight. Do not resist. But do not retreat!”

Over the thunderous applause and cheering that greets this remark, the shot ricochets like an echo of the crowd’s intensity. Dorothy falters, staggering, and falls. Dean moves by reflex and cuts the lights.

Darkness shutters the hall, but he’s already running toward the stage. He elbows past a group whose high voices reveal panic. A scream shatters the sudden muteness of the crowd.

“Dean!” Castiel’s voice, close by.

“I’ve got you.” He shoves a person aside and comes up next to them.

“Lead.” Castiel speaks in a low voice, but already shouts and cries filled the warehouse, covering his words. “I’ve got her, Sam’s keeping the door open for us, move.”

Dean creates a ruthless path through the crowd that is converging on the stage. “Where is she?” voices cry. Others swear. “Damn Central!!!” yell others. “They ordered this!” “Kill Senator Alastair—Senator Abaddon—Senator—” the names go on. Sam shuts the door behind them just as the lights come back on. On the street, browned-out lamps throw dim circles of light across the sidewalks. Two trucks sit against the curb.

“Gun in my pocket,” Castiel states, Dorothy in his arms. Blood seeps through the cloth of her shirt, spreading a red stain over her abdomen. She’s unconscious. “Hijack a truck.”

But Dean’s already at the door to the first truck. It opens and the surprised driver is pulled unceremoniously from his seat onto the ground. “Get in,” he calls. It’s crowded with all four of them and Dean ends up with Dorothy’s feet across his lap. He gets the truck started just as the door from the warehouse opens and the first stream of people pour out. The vehicle jerks forward and he floors the gas. He takes the first corner at forty, the second at sixty, not caring about the speed limit. He’s never driven on a road with speed limits before but a lifetime of driving on Kansas’ surface has given him razor sharp reflexes.

“Hold on, Dorothy. Damn you, hold on,” Castiel’s muttering.

“Where are we going?” Sam asks.

“Richmond. I can use the clinic.”

Dean groans, “I don’t know how to get there.”

“Don’t you read maps, Dean?” Cas sounds amused. “Mother help us. I always study my ground.”

“I didn’t expect Dorothy to get assassinated. Damn it, where do I turn?”

Cas laughs. “Ah, the good old days. Left here. Five blocks, then the Glacier Expressway for thirty kilometers.”

“Will she live that long?” Sam asks. He can’t take his eyes from Dorothy, where her head rests in his lap.

“I don’t lose patients,” Castiel’s voice is hard. Cloth rips and a bloody rag falls at Dean’s feet. “Primitive,” he says. “Not even a laser. A damned slug. I’ll have to get it out. Yes, this right, my love.” He directs the last to Dean.

Traffic on the expressway is light. After all, only transport and cargo vehicles use it, as well as the occasional private vehicle of a Senatorial family. “I hope every single transport worker on Arcadia strikes,” mutters Sam. “Bring the whole damn planet to a stop.”

Dean slows to five kilometers over the speed limit and tries to drive between the white lines and raised dots. Castiel works in silence beside him. He can hear Dorothy’s breathing, as ragged as the bloody cloth draped over his shoes.

“This exit,” Castiel tells him. “And here. And—” They pass the white neon sign identifying Richmond station.

“I know from here,” interrupts Dean. Within minutes they pull up before Richmond clinic.

It’s dark. Sam and Dean follow Castiel, Dorothy in his arms, as he goes up the steps. Dean’s been here once before, has seen the Ridanis Castiel cares for treat him with a trust astonishing for tattoos used to nothing but scorn and hatred from their unmarked brethren. Has heard it in their embarrassed thanks and seen it in the shy lift of their eyes to meet his.

Their footsteps echo along the empty corridors. Not even a janitor lingers here to question them or to greet them. Malnutrition, eye and respiratory diseases, together with gynecological problems in the women, Castiel told Dean once that’s what he treats mostly. Dean thinks about that, because he doesn’t want to look at Dorothy. He’s afraid to look at her. At all that blood, draining out of her. He remembers what Castiel said as they were leaving Malvern: ‘The only cure for perfection is death.’

“Damn it,” Dean whispers, feeling sick with it, “don’t die. Don’t die.”

“Open that door for me.” Castiel’s voice is perfectly level. “We’ll go into the back room.” Sam rushes forward to do as asked. “Sam, stay here. Call out if anyone comes.”

They walk into the common room where Castiel examines most of his patients and Sam takes up a position there. Dean continues following Cas through to the back, where he treats the delicate cases. He lays Dorothy gently down on the examination table and rummages in a cabinet.

“I need…” he pauses. Dorothy’s eyes flutter and open. One hand twitches limply. Dean grabs it, squeezing.

“Charlene,” Dorothy whispers like a gasp, or a prayer. Her face is clear of pain, but her eyes are distant.

“Keep her talking,” Castiel orders. “She’s in shock. I don’t want her going out again until I’ve got that bullet out.” He pulls on gloves, fitting one onto Dean’s free hand, then picks up instruments and sets them on a cart beside the table. Finally, Cas lifts aside the makeshift bandage he’d wrapped around Dorothy’s abdomen.

“Hand me these when I ask for them Dean.” Castiel transfers several instruments into Dean’s gloved hand. He gives Dorothy a shot, waits a few moments and then eases tissue aside.

“Who’s Charlene?” Dean asks, bending down close to Dorothy’s face. The scent of blood is thick in the air.

Dorothy sighs, holds her breath like at Castiel’s careful cutting. “Charlene,” she murmurs.

“‘Then what need have I of wealth?’” Castiel quotes almost wistful. “‘Please, my lord, tell me what you know about the way to immortality.’” And he laughs bitterly.

Dean glares at him, tightening his hand around Dorothy’s. “Who is Charlene?” he asks again.

“As fair as the dawn.” Dorothy’s voice seems to come from a great distance. “My beloved.”

“Give me the blue one,” demands Castiel and Dean hands him an instrument. The one he sets down is red, trailing red onto the plastic sheet that covers the table.

“I didn’t know that you have a beloved, Dorothy,” Dean speaks gently. “Where did you meet her?”

Dorothy’s eyes seem to gain focus. “Rochester,” she breathes. “Where I grew up. The Nika Revolt.”

“Oh, yes,” says Dean. “You lost your whole family—” he falters, cursing himself for bringing up death.

“All but my sister Sarah,” Dorothy gasps again, but the sound is stronger. “I would’ve died too. The burning building was falling in. But Charlene came. She pulled me out.”

“Give me the—ah—the one with the yellow tag on it,” says Castiel. “Ah, better and better. Almost there.”

“Was Charlene one of the revolutionaries?” Dean asked.

Dorothy’s mouth twists up into a smile both sweet and detached. “Troop,” she says. “Government trooper.” Her eyes fade out of focus; Dean presses her hand until she comes back. “She came to the hospital, later—curious, I suppose, to see the burnt rebel she’d saved. I loved her.”

“Did she love you?” Dean asks softly.

“Who can tell?” She gasps, hard and in pain. “I felt that.”

“Good,” Castiel says, distracted by what he’s doing. “Keep talking.”

She speaks between gasps. “We made plans. Two comrades and—and I. To escape. It was a prison hospital, you know. She—she found out about it. Turned us in.”

“That’s terrible!” Dean forgets his fear for her in righteous anger.

“Is it? Each day the sun betrays us, going down to night. But do we blame it? She did her duty.”

“Got it!” Castiel speaks triumphantly. “Nasty beast. Give me the—thank you. Don’t move, I’m sewing.”

“But the night has stars,” Dean says, still caught in Dorothy’s betrayal. “The night has its own beauty.”

“Just so,” Dorothy agrees.

“How poetic of you, my love,” says Castiel.

“But Dorothy, what happened then?”

“Life separated us.” Dorothy’s eyes fill with pain now as she rises out of shock, focus clear and strong on Dean, but still she smiles. “We’ve no weapons against that.”

“I’m sorry, Dorothy,” he says, his throat tight with sadness.

“Sorry? Never be sorry for love, Dean. That is what sustains us.”

“My dear Dorothy,” Castiel speaks, “if you can philosophize, then you are certainly going to live.”

Dean turns away from both of them, disengages his hand and stands with his face pressed up against the wall.

Castiel examines Dorothy’s eyes, her pulse, gives her a shot, watches Dorothy relax. Dean still hasn’t moved. “Dean,” Castiel says, soft.

“I’m all right,” he says into the wall. “I’m just not used to having someone I care about almost die on me.”

Only Dorothy sees Castiel’s face, bitterness compounded with an agony that is quickly suppressed. “I hope you never get used to it,” he replies. “Believe me. Let’s clean up here. Then we’ll move Dorothy into one of the wards in the next building. She’ll be safe there until she’s well enough to move.”

There is a pause. Dean turns. His face is pale, freckles standing out across his cheeks. “All right.” His voice gains strength as he talks. “Where do I start?”

Cas hands him a sponge. “Scrub. By the way, I didn’t know you’d driven on Arcadia before.”

He gave a short laugh. “I haven’t. I’ve never driven on a road, or in traffic. But I know how to switch gears and steer well enough to avoid avalanches.”

“Mother bless us,” Castiel stage whispers to Dorothy. “I’m amazed we made it here alive.”

“So am I,” Dean adds in the same whisper.

Dorothy smiles weakly at both of them.


	17. Chapter 17

“Half of the transport workers walked off the job the first day. By yesterday, half of those left behind had joined them. All sorts of people stood in the picket lines at the stations, not just the transport workers. Sensei Barnes called us and said she’s closing the Academy temporarily until the strike is over. Central issued their ultimatum after five days: End the strike or they’d call out the troops. And yesterday they called out the troops,” Dean recites.

Dorothy regards them over a spoonful of soup. “And?”

“Poor Dorothy,” Sam answers. “Stuck in that ward seeing Castiel once a day for five minutes, painted red and orange so you’d blend in and never hearing a bit of news until they got you home today. You missed your triumph. I watched down at Malvern Station. Every single picketer had to be dragged away, but none of them resisted. No arrests. No injuries, except one man got his hand stepped on in Stroud and a trooper who got her cheek scratched. I can’t remember where that was. The whole coast, all the strikers, it’s the same thing. They stood their ground until Central called out their guns and then they didn’t fight, but they didn’t retreat.”

Dorothy sighs. “The Ridanis were unnaturally quiet, I thought.”

“They were hiding you.”

“They know,” she says. “I fear they are in for hard times. They know eventually there will be violence and the worst will hit them.”

Dean frowns. “There’s one thing I’ve always wondered about the Ridanis. If they didn’t tattoo their children, they could break the cycle of prejudice, couldn’t they? So why do they keep tattooing?”

Dorothy laughs, surprised. “Have you ever asked a Ridani that question?”

“No,” Dean admits. “I’d be too embarrassed.”

“As well you should be. The patterns they wear on their bodies proudly, despite everything, are at the very heart and soul of their religion, their culture. The culture they brought with them when they came to the Riven with the rest of humanity. It would be like asking you to…” she hesitates.

“To repudiate martial arts and Master Smith? Of course I wouldn’t and I’d cling to it more fiercely, with more pride, the more I was pressured to give it up. I know that well enough.” He pauses, thinking of how they left Campbell House and looks at Sam. He puts a hand on Dean’s arm and Dean leans into his brother. They sit a moment in companionable silence.

“What’re you going to do now?” Sam asks Dorothy finally.

“Call a second strike for the first day of next month,” she answers. “In commemoration of the first. Speak again on the eve of it, in public. Central must get the message we’re not simply a nuisance. That we mean to change our lives.”

“Damn,” Dean says. “You’re making my life difficult. Only this time let us and Castiel organize the speech. Please?”

Dorothy smiles. “I’ll trade with you. Three courier runs and it’s in your hands.”

“Throw in how I can get ahold of Bobby and it’s a deal,” counters Dean.

With a quick phrase, Baby rises from her place in front of the computer. _Dean,_ she sings. _I beg you, do not jeopardize your master’s masquerade. When he is free of encumbrance, he will certainty summon you._

“Baby! How can I bargain when you’re working against me?”

_Forgive me, Dean. There is perhaps other currency in which you may deal._

He whistles his approval and Baby sinks happily back to the terminal. “Very well, Athena,” he says. “We organize the speech, you don’t go out without me or Sam as your bodyguard and you tell us where all the information you’re getting from Bobby is going. I haven’t seen anything to account for all the hours Baby sits at that damn machine.”

Dorothy laughs and drinks the rest of her soup straight from the bowl. “Done. You don’t see anything because it doesn’t come in here,” she says. “I don’t quite understand it, but Baby and Bobby send out the information in a spiral, so it comes in at differing locations on a random cycle. Then I collect it and send it back out in bits to various repositories, where it can be transferred, by courier run or otherwise, either to cells on Arcadia or out onto the road where merchantmen pass it along to those folk who otherwise wouldn’t hear any news of Jehane at all.”

“Like Kansas.” Dean nods. “We’d never heard of him. That’s why it struck me so when you said Central had arrested a bunch of Jehanists there. Although, Paisley…” He trails off, remembering how quickly their interrogators on Beaconsfield had accused Paisley of that particular sin. “Meanwhile, you’ve collected information about how Central works. How long until you can sabotage it from within? Or is that what Bobby’s planning?”

Dorothy shakes her head. “You’re ahead of me, Dean. I don’t know what Bobby’s planning. But I don’t work that way. I work with people, I educate them, I tell them the truth. They join me because Jehane’s cause is just. A coup will just give us a new Central to replace the old one.”

“What will Jehane give us?” Sam asks, taking her bowl and spoon and carrying them to the sink before she can answer.

  


.oOo.

  


Athena dictates the second strike from her couch, although the millions who hear and heed her voice don’t know that. Sam and Dean run courier runs for her, more than three, once having to knock out two Security officers when the secrecy of a cell is breached. Dean misses more days at the Academy. Castiel organizes the speech, which takes place in a warehouse in Oxley District.

This time, although Dorothy is there, it’s a man on stage giving the speech. Another of Cas’ precautions, won when he points out that Athena isn’t meant to be one person, but an embodiment of everyone. No shots interrupt this speech.

Ten thousand hear her words in person, uncounted others hear the broadcast. On the first day of the second month of spring, the entire north coast metropolis comes to a standstill.

“How’d you get home?” Dean asks Castiel when he walks in very late that night.

He merely smiles and goes straight to Dorothy. “How’s my patient?” he asks, sitting on the end of the couch.

“Walking very well,” says Dorothy. “Wanting to get out again.”

“You have your wish,” says Castiel. “I’m giving you to the Ridanis.”

“What!” Sam exclaims.

“Call up the underground nets,” Castiel instructs. “You won’t see anything but those same damn Senators preaching to their constituents on the official channels. Alastair, Abaddon and Azazel. You’d think they’d get tired of talking.”

Dorothy chuckles darkly. “Let’s be fair, I never get tired of talking.”

“I don’t believe in being fair,” Cas smiles softly at her. “I know how these people think.”

“Damn.” Dean is peering over Baby. “I saw troops out this afternoon, but—” A screen scrolls past. “Void help us, three hundred arrested in Stroud. More than five hundred arrests in Clarendon and Coniston.”

Dean stops to take a breath and Sam takes over. “They estimate more than ten thousand arrests over the coast. It says here a striker was beaten to death at the Oxley District detention center. And—” he straightens abruptly, turning speechless.

Castiel nods, knowing what they’ve just seen. “Now you see why I’m giving our estimable Athena to the Ridanis.”

“Oh,” says Dorothy. “That.”

“Yes, that,” Castiel agrees.

“A new warrant for your arrest,” murmurs Dean still reading. “They’re offering a reward of one hundred thousand credits for information leading to your arrest. That’d make most people rich. Especially these days.”

“Central won’t find you in the ghettos,” Castiel continues. “Not even the Immortals will find you.” He shrugs. “Maybe Bobby could. Don’t argue with me, Dorothy. I hate righteous people because they’re hypocrites. But you, by the Mother, you aren’t. So you’ll do as I say.”

  


.oOo.

  


Most of Sam and Dean’s courier transactions now take place in three-di bars, because of the mix of their clientele and because gambling can’t be stopped. Even with doubled Security patrols and a strictly enforced curfew and especially when military pilots are among the most celebrated participants in the three-di tournaments.

“It’s been quiet all month, Cas,” Dean protests. “If Sam and I make this run tonight it’ll cut the backlog of classified information that Baby’s been sitting on. It’ll complete the entire sixth level of coverage. One more level and we’ll—”

“You love this business, don’t you,” Castiel says. Watching him, Dean thinks how much he’s changed since Dean first saw him. Most of those blatant affectations have vanished, although the seeds of them still linger in his habitual postures and the slight drawl in his voice. At the moment, he looks… Dean would say annoyed, but it’s more than that.

“My hours at the Academy have been cut back because of the curfew. Bobby’s long since disappeared and now Dorothy’s been gone a month. What am I supposed to do? And yes, I do like it. It’s the most exciting sparring I’ve ever done.”

Cas continues to stare at him. It unnerves Dean, like Castiel the predator, having caught his prey, is now no longer sure he wants to consume it. “ _Abai’is-ssa_ ,” he breathes. The word is so alien that for a horrifying instant Dean thinks he’s not looking at Cas at all, but at some other creature. “Spare me her, at least.”

“Cas?”

“Dean, sit here,” he demands. He’s Castiel again, but with too much energy.

He sits down on the couch, leaving a meter between them. He checks the placement of the chairs—out of Cas’ immediate reach. Baby, at the terminal, has changed her hum tune mid-phrase: _Monitoring, monitoring,_ she sings now, one amber light blinking in his direction.

“I had three patients in six hours, Dean. There wasn’t a soul on the street when I walked from the clinic to the station. Not even transients. Just Security and government troops, waiting for the third strike. Dorothy’s sweet peace is going to shatter tomorrow and you’re not going out tonight.”

“All right,” he replies in his most neutral tone. “I can do it later.”

“Get out of it now, Dean, before it destroys you.”

“Castiel—” Dean isn’t sure what he wants to say next. Sam moved into Dorothy’s room after she went into hiding and he’d disappeared in there, closing the door after himself almost immediately when Dean and Cas started talking.

Castiel sits up abruptly, like an animal startled out of hiding and grasps Dean’s wrists in his hands. With an effort, Dean doesn’t pull away from him. “I should never have slept with you! I know it, I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. You’ll hate me when you find out the truth.”

He falls silent. Dean says nothing, afraid to disturb this mood.

“You’ll hate me,” he repeats, almost relishing the sound of it.

“Cas, what’s the truth?”

He looks away. “I can’t tell you.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“That’s not true!” He jerks his eyes back to Dean. “It’s not you I can’t trust. It’s myself.”

When Dean doesn’t respond, Cas examines the room, his eyes drifting over its contents piece by piece, measuring them, or his place between them. The desk, back in its original nook and empty without Dorothy sitting at it. The terminal scrolling official news headlines, half hidden by Baby. The tiny kitchen counter. The high window that looks out over the park. “They caught me,” Cas utters into the room.

“Who caught you?”

“The League. I was the prodigy. I thought I was invulnerable. I didn’t believe they would arrest me.” Still he doesn’t look at Dean.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“I used to think I was sixty-four.”

“Void help us,” Dean gasps, losing his careful balance of equilibrium. “How old is Bobby?”

“Do you know how long I was in prison?” Cas asks, like he hasn’t heard Dean. “Sixteen years, seven months, three days. Eleven hours and thirty-two minutes.” This close, Dean can see the bluish stain in his hair and he begins to wonder if blue is, in fact, its natural color. “But you know, when I got out, they told me it’d been twenty years, two months, seventeen days. Eleven hours and thirty-two minutes.” A mocking smile curves his lips. “A clever trick to play on me. Did they think they could deceive me? Scare me into betraying my comrades?”

“Then what were you doing on that ship?”

Now Cas focuses on Dean, his stare like acid. “Getting as far from prison as possible,” he snaps. “They’re fools. Don’t they know? My sense of time is absolute. Absolute.”

For some reason, this display of arrogance restores Dean’s shaken composure. “I see,” he says.

Cass hands still hold Dean’s wrists. “But afterward… I used to get sick in windows, before. They so offended my sense of time. Physically sick.”

“You don’t anymore,” Dean replies, on surer ground here. “Cas, you moved.” It’s an accusation.

“But they don’t exist.” Cas looks at Dean helplessly. “They don’t really exist. Windows. They last forever—not forever—Dean. Do you know what is inside a window?”

“No-one does.”

“Hell,” he whispers, like it’s the greatest secret he knows. “Or heaven. Take your pick.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.” His voice is bitter and he releases Dean’s wrists. “Have you ever been put in sensory deprivation? Do you even know what it is?”

Dean leaves his hands in his lap. Cas’ bitterness is easier to deal with than his abstraction. Behind them Baby breaks from her ‘monitoring’ hum to sing _If you were gonna crucify me, I wouldn’t want nobody to see._

“I was in solitary, but it didn’t work. They couldn’t break me. So they put me in sensory.” He stares toward the window, “You can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t smell—” His voice falters. “There’s nothing to touch.” His eyes, almost sly almost wary, slide back to Dean. “Finally they took me out.” This time Cas takes his hands gently, pulling Dean against him like the memory of that time draws forth from him a need to have all these sensations in full. “Dean, my love,” he murmurs. “What if I was in that prison for twenty years, two months and seventeen days? What happened to those three years, seven months, fifteen days? Where did they go? Is that what exists inside the windows? Lost time?” He laughs short and hard. “‘Sharp as Angel’s mind,’” he says with scorn. “Mother help me, Dean. I don’t know.”

There’s a long silence. Cas’ head rests on his shoulder, the touch of his lips on the bare skin of Dean’s neck. Cas kisses his neck, the hollow of his throat, the line of his jaw, his cheeks, his mouth. Sensations arise in him, but Cas draws back, releasing him, standing up.

“So, Dean,” he speaks and the assumed weariness is back in his voice, “we don’t go out tonight. We don’t go out tomorrow.” Like the entire conversation hadn’t taken place. “The Mother knows I’ve created enough violence in my time to see it coming now. Poor Dorothy. I’d hate to be an idealist.” He smiles.

It’s his familiar smile but behind it, like a half-voiced suggestion, Dean senses that it’s different, that something about Cas is just removed from himself. He turns his eyes on Dean, eyes concealing like some buried treasure the truth that lies deep beneath. Dean remembers the Sta who had been incarcerated in the cell next to his on Beaconsfield, but he doesn’t know why.

“Why did you recant?” he asks.

Cas laughs. “What amuses me,” he answers, “is that no-one ever suspects the real reason. Well, certainly, I did it to get out of prison. They wanted to believe me, poor souls. They wanted to believe all of us, us throwbacks, that we would repent our wicked ways. But it wasn’t the solitary. I was solitary enough as a boy. It wasn’t even the sensory, even though they thought it was. No.”

He wanders to stand by the window, staring down at the budding park, the slow unfurling of green. “They gave up. They put me back in the main wards. I couldn’t stand all the people. So I recanted and they let me out.” He measures Dean across the distance. “Eventually I got used to having people around me again. But I can never go back.”

“To where?”

“You misunderstand. To _what_ I was before.”

“I don’t know what you were,” Dean says.

Castiel doesn’t reply. The light coming through the window highlights part of his face, but mostly he’s in shadow.

“Or what you are now,” he adds.

“Ah, Dean, didn’t you know? I’m a seraph.”

“All these words!” he snaps resentfully, standing. “I don’t understand most of them. And you don’t mean me to. Why should I bother to ask anymore?”

“Now I see,” Castiel’s voice is low. “You don’t trust me.”

“What reason have you given me to trust you?”

“I gave you myself.”

“You gave me your body. I don’t know what that has to do with yourself.”

Dean feels his anger, even at a distance, feels with frightening instinct that same moment of anticipation before Cas had struck, shattering the chair. Feels that Cas is only controlling himself by such a massive force of will that if he were to move even a finger, twitch even a lip, he would lose every vestige of rationality. His eyes gleam, his very stillness is a threat.

“How can you say that to me?” he utters hoarsely and he walks into their bedroom shutting and locking the door behind him.

Dean waits, straining to hear any noise. Surely he will break something, hit something. Silence, but for the distant buzz of transport vehicles and the faint click and hum of the computer, conversation lost beneath layers and layers of muffling cloth.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but the words dissolve as mist does under the sun.

A cool touch, he jumps, stifling a yelp and whirls. Baby nudges up against him. Sighing he sinks down onto the couch. Baby settles beside him and sings, a soft chorale. After a bit, because he recognizes it and recognizes that it is, in a strange fashion, appropriate for Castiel, he joins in.

_I hurt myself today_  
_To see if I still feel_  
_I focus on the pain_  
_The only thing that's real_  
_The needle tears a hole_  
_The old familiar sting_  
_Try to kill it all away_  
_But I remember everything_

Dean sleeps in Dorothy’s bedroom with Sam.

In the morning Cas makes breakfast and has it waiting for them when they wake up from the smell of aris. It’s an offering and Dean accepts it. In the afternoon Cas suggests they take a walk in the park. Sam makes some lame excuse about checking the terminal for news.

Cas strolls them around the green, arm around Dean, wondering aloud how Dorothy is getting on. It seems to Dean, under the warm spring sun, easier to accept this truce than to probe any further into the sources of their disagreement or indeed to attempt to define his feelings about them.

On the shore of the pond, under a flowering tree, Cas stops Dean. Kisses him in a way he’s never kissed him before, with a tenderness that makes Dean feel afraid for no reason he can discern. Shots splinter their reconciliation. Their heads snap toward the direction of the sound.

“That’s coming from Malvern Station!” Dean notes. Another volley of shots, the scattering sound of automatic weapons ricochets through the high-rise of apartment blocks. “They’re firing on the strikers!” He breaks away from Cas starting to run toward the sound.

Cas clutches Dean, pulling him so tightly against him that Dean can’t even struggle, “Don’t bother,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do for them.”

“Damn them!” Dean yells as a third round of shots shatter the quiet of the park, like a distant celebration. In faint counterpoint, they hear the first cries, screams and yelling nearing them.

“They’re panicking,” says Castiel. “Let’s go home.”

“Castiel! If people are hurt, you’ve got to help them.”

“What? In the middle of the park, using their own clothes for bandages?”

“Why not?”

“For one good reason.” He turns Dean and stares straight into his face. “Learn this now, Dean. We know Athena. We know the Ridanis have her. We have Baby and the link to Bobby and we’re passing that knowledge out to the rest of the universe. If they take us in for questioning, if they decide we know something? We can’t take that risk. People get hurt, Dean. That’s what happens in rebellions. People die. Get used to it.”

“Damn you Cas,” he spits, but he knows that he’s right. “Why are you helping Dorothy? Why are you helping Jehane, anyway?”

“Because I can’t get out of the habit,” he answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Shadow on the Wall** by _Brandi Carlile_.  
>  **Hurt** by _Johnny Cash_.


	18. Chapter 18

Baby has four screens up on the terminal, monitoring the range of news. Three of the screens have crop statistics scrolling on them while the fourth is blank. By evening, all official channels are broadcasting either a looping message for all citizens to return to their homes or a long speech by Senator Alastair.

“… due to the unprovoked acts of violence against government personnel, we are forced to impose a state of emergency,” he declares in his familiar sermonizing voice. “Stay in your homes. In three days we will allow limited movement for the delivery of food. Brownouts will be instituted immediately in four-hour rotations throughout the metropolis …”

“Except in Central, I bet,” Sam grumbles, turning the volume down as Senator Alastair starts moralizing. As if it’s synchronized, their lights dim.

In the morning, Baby finds an underground net broadcasting on a new channel. Fifty dead in Warwick. Full scale riot in Coniston—no casualty count available. No contact with the Ridani districts. At least twenty dead at Blackheath Station.

There’s no news of Athena. The underground nets still online broadcast her old speeches. Central raises the bounty to 200,000 credits.

On the fourth day, an old Ridani man arrives at their door, bleeding from deep gashes all along the left side of his body. As Castiel tends him, he tells his story.

“Ya terrible trouble. Richmond done burst—riot; worst I ever seen. Ya six troopers be dead, min, first day. Central sent in ya squad o’ Immortals.” His sigh holds great tragedy. “One o’ their fellows fell behind, like. Ya crowd fell on him, hundreds. Ah. Ah.” It could be gasps of pain at Castiel’s probing, or at the memory. “Beat him to blood and innards. Couldna even tell if he be tattooed or not, but for ya white uniform. Ah. Terrible, terrible. They come back, ya Immortals. They didna even spare ya children. It be all blood, min. All blood, running down ya streets. You be sore needed.”

Castiel looks at Dean.

“You have to go,” Dean tells him.

Cas holds Dean for a long time before he leaves, like he can take the essence of Dean with him and then Dean is alone with Sam and Baby.

At first, because they can’t go to the Academy, they move all the furniture in the main room and work out. But the enthusiasm with which they started all this, that rush after Bobby left, fades as their isolation grows.

They practice less. Start to plan, with Baby, circles within circles of distributing information. Together they build a stand on wheels for her, which she can propel by a clever redirection of her flight mechanism. The harness allows her to accompany them on the increasing number of courier transfers they now run together. Having no direction to follow but their own, Sam and Dean spend most of their time on Dorothy’s work.

Cas calls them when he can, but there’s little he can say over the screen. Once, touchingly, he tells Dean he misses him. He looks exhausted. The underground nets report hundreds have died in the Ridani districts, that they’re still occupied by government troops. But even on the underground nets, they have little sympathy to spare for the tattoos.

Spring unfolds toward summer, a process that amazes the brothers, having never seen it before: slim trees, branches with light leafed twigs like veins and capillaries against the white and blue sky, sway slightly at their tops, brushed by the wind, wetted now and then with an obscuring screen of rain. The silver grey surface of the pond moves in ripples.

They hear Dorothy speak for the first time since the final strike one night in a three-di bar. Baby’s been sent into a back room by the proprietor, where she’s plugged into a terminal and coding information back and forth. Sam and Dean wait at the bar. The tavern itself has its overhead lights dimmed to brownout dinginess, but above each table, like twenty-four minor suns, hang white globes of bright light that illuminate the depths of the table and the faces and forearms of the two players. At the hexagonal corner tables a handful of Stas play humans at the Sta mathematical game of bissterlas.

“Comrades, citizens of the Riven. You know I speak for you. You know that only together, only through struggle, only through perseverance, can we win.”

It startles Dean, Dorothy’s voice crackling out over the speakers behind the bar; it is a new speech. He can detect no weariness in her voice, only a touch of sadness. He wonders where she is.

Listening, still watchful, he notices a young man playing three-di at the table nearest them. First because he’s a Ridani and that’s unusual enough, but second because he has a certain lightness of gesture, a mercurial mobility, that reminds Dean of Paisley. He glances a final shot into Corner C and takes the game from an old, grizzled woman with pilot’s bars on her cap. A younger man, smartly dressed, steps up and takes challenger’s corner.

“… let Central divide us and we shall surely fail. We all suffer from their oppression. But we must bear our grievances to Central. We cannot blame our relatives. We cannot blame our neighbors. We cannot blame the Ridanis. No-one but Central is to blame for this assault against our rights. Save your anger for Central. Save your hatred, if you must have hatred, for Central. Save your energy for the struggle …”

“Yeah,” says a man in trooper’s fatigues to his companion. They’ve paused to watch as the young Ridani makes short work of his latest challenger. “So they kill an Immortal, we supposed to throw them a party? Athena makes a bit of sense now and then, I can say ’cause we’re private, but them damned tattoos—” They move out of Dean’s hearing.

A new man, middle-aged, a respectable merchantman’s pilot patch on the sleeves of his grey jacket, comes forward to match the Ridani player. Bets pass through the crowd growing around the table.

Most people who travel out over the Highroad get their first lessons in vector drives by watching the three-di tournaments. It’s true the navigation teams, supported by computers, find the correct velocity vector for each individual window—within each individual system’s current alignment—but it’s the pilot who sends the ship through. It’s while watching pilots engage in billiards, on those huge transparent boxes filled with heavy air and shifting physical windows that lead the player like a maze of angles through the game, that the average citizen feels most reassured about the reliability of this form of transportation. After all, the point of the game is to go from point A to point C or from point B to point D by the safest, quickest route.

The merchantman loses. As another challenger comes forward, Dean nods to the proprietor, who’s just came back from checking on Baby. “How is the transfer going?” he asks.

A quick nod. “Smooth.”

A man with military pilots stripes on his sleeve, comes up for a drink. “Smooth?” He takes his drink and follows their look. “That tattoo? I’ve seen him over at Charson’s. No-one’s managed to figure out how he’s cheating.”

“Maybe he’s a pilot,” Sam comments.

This brings a laugh. “A damned tattoo? Hoo. But we got a treat in store for him tonight. Billie’s here; she’ll split him good. You’ll see.”

He leaves.

“How much longer?” Dean asks.

“You tell me,” says the proprietor. “Hour, maybe.”

In that hour the Ridani beats three more challengers. Baby emerges from the back room, looking ungainly but relatively normal in her four-legged stocks and complaining about her unwieldy disguise in an almost inaudible melody, just as a well-groomed, dark woman in military uniform—obviously the fabled Billie—steps up to the table.

“Dean?” asks Sam.

Dean whistles as if to himself, _Just this game, Baby. We want to watch._

_I feel it my duty to remind you that any delay jeopardizes our—_

_Baby_. She lapses back into her quiet complaint.

The customary tiny beaded braids of the Ridani cluster around the young man’s head, but his hair is shorter than Ridanis usually wear it; Paisley’s had hung halfway to her waist. A stark geometric pattern covers his face and arms. His hands have a certain delicacy that reminds Dean of Castiel. But most striking of all, he has that grace that is peculiar to those people who never consciously think about the impression their bodies and movements make on observers—the spontaneous coordination that is five parts effortless stillness and five parts impulsive momentum.

Watching him, Dean wonders what indenture is like on Hexham, what kind of work a child such as Paisley would be given. He beats the military pilot by a ratio of seven to four.

Then Billie challenges him to best of three and in the second game defeats him six to five. But despite the win, Dean feels the tension grow. Bets increase to ridiculous proportions. The Ridani must have made a huge sum already—troopers crowd as close to the table as is allowed. Dean can see the hatred Dorothy has spoken of on their faces as they stare at the Ridani.

He’s going to get beaten up. Sam is looking at Dean. No-one will bother to stop it—just like when Paisley was arrested. Just like Paisley.

Hush shutters the table. Billie begins, the only sound is the slip of her hand on the cue and the hard sigh of the ball through the box. The vector speeds and settings are at the highest level the program can deliver, a difficulty unlikely to be met in real space. She gets through six of the ten windows before a ‘fail,’ and the troopers relax.

“Can’t no-one beat that lead,” someone mutters and is waved to silence as the Ridani bends to take his shot.

He goes through all ten windows to finish with an ease that seems arrogant and perhaps deliberately insulting.

“Damn,” Dean murmurs as the Ridani collects his winnings and escapes out a side door. Three troopers follow him. “I don’t care what Cas said. It isn’t fair. Sam, Baby, come on.”

Stepping outside, a warm drizzle meets them, a soothing, light hush on the alleyway that they enter. Out to the left a dim street lamp illuminates a damp patch of street. To the right, in the shadowy end of the alley, hidden except for the nebulous suggestion of sharp, jerking movements and the low exchange of muffled noises, three soldiers beat up a huddled body. They don’t hear them as Sam, Dean and Baby come up from behind.

“For pity’s sake,” says a low voice, indrawn from pain, breaking through in a sudden lull in the blows, “you can have all the credits.”

“Hoo.” A spiteful, hostile voice. “But ain’t he a generous one. Well, it ain’t credit we want, you mangy cheater, but satisfaction for insult given.” There is a simultaneous crack and a gasp of pain.

One of the soldier’s behinds looms squarely in front of Baby. Baby blinks an amber light at Dean and he shrugs. She snakes out an appendage.

When the light flashes, Sam takes out the second soldier with a jab to the face, while Dean shifts his weight and back knuckles the third, sweeping him down.

“Can you run?” he hisses to the figure on the ground.

He moves, pushing up, gasping in anguish. “My arm, I think it’s broken.”

Baby whistles a warning. Dean spins, blocking on instinct, deflecting a punch with his forearm as Sam’s fist flies in from the side, taking the third soldier. A second and third flash of light and all three soldiers lay still.

“Come on,” Dean says. Grabbing an arm, he yanks the Ridani up.

He yelps, suppressing a scream, and Dean transfers him to his other side, pulling him forward toward the street.

“Can you go faster?” Sam urges, looking around to see if they’ve attracted any attention.

The man’s breaths come in labored gasps. “Mother of All,” he swears in a soft, choking voice. “It hurts.” He says something else under his breath, a curse maybe and stumbles. “I’m afraid the left ankle is broken as well. I can’t see out of my right eye, either.”

“And you’re obviously not even the damned tattoo,” mutters Dean, but he continues to support him.

“I beg your pardon?” Now the voice is much stronger, laced with anger.

They come into the light pool of a streetlight and Dean turns his head to look at him. Stops for the space of a moment staring at him. It _is_ the Ridani man. He laughs, a sound bitter with an anguish that goes beyond physical pain.

“Sure,” he says. “I bain’t be speaking ya tattoo speech.” His voice is heavy with sarcasm.

“Move it,” Sam snaps coming up beside them, he’s struggling with Baby’s frame over the broken ground.

Dean quickly looks the man up and down and, judging him manageable, swings him up into his arms and carries him. The man’s breathing is punctuated by wordless exclamations, marking his distress. With Sam pushing and shoving at Baby’s frame they’re able to make a good distance.

Detouring into a back street, Dean helps the man sit on a dirty step of a boarded up storefront. Sam leans over Baby laboring for his own breath.

_Dean_ , she sings in a soft voice that the Ridani, panting heavily in exhaustion and pain, can’t hear. _My wheels are sticking! This device is the most shameful use of my locomotive abilities I have ever in my entire existence been made to endure. Indeed, I could be_ Dean doesn’t have the breath to tell her to stop. Baby, perceiving this, stops. _Do you require my assistance?_ she sings in a solicitous tone.

“Just a rest,” he says, Sam nodding his agreement.

“Sure,” says the young man in his soft voice. “You must be wanting sommut o’ me. Or else ya confusion hae taked you.” Even in the shadows Dean can see the bruises forming on the right side of his face and his swollen left arm. “And being as you saved my kinnas, min, I do be in ya complete service tae you. So be it.” He bobs his head in a sarcastically menial manner, gasping in pain.

“Serves you right,” Dean snorts back a laugh. He undoes his belt and rigs it to hold up the guy’s broken arm. “Now, can you go on?”

“Light o’ glory,” he says, a mockery of Paisley’s innocent accents, “ya blessed be green grass angel.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dean snaps. This somehow must satisfy him, because afterwards the guy comes along meekly. By the time Sam and Dean get him up the back stairs and onto Sam’s bed, he’s content to collapse there without a word, even to laying still under their tentative ministrations. His left arm is swollen and red, but it’s straight. There’s a large lump on the bone, hard and extremely painful to him.

“If it’s broken, at least it hasn’t shifted,” Sam says as he immobilizes the arm with gauze.

“I don’t think they broke anything else.” Dean comments from where he’s rotating the guy’s ankle. “You’re gonna have some ugly bruises and they’re gonna hurt like the Void. We’ll need to wash all those scraps and that’s going to sting.”

“What’re your names?” he asks. His eyes don’t seem as glazed with pain now that he’s had a chance to lie down and rest.

“Winchester,” Dean says without thinking. “Well,” he adds more slowly. “People here call me Dean Smith.”

“I’m Sam Wesson, What’s your name?”

“I be called Pinto.” In the other room, Baby hums at the terminal. “Why did you do it?” he asks.

“You wouldn’t believe us,” Dean replies.

“Can’t be worse than what I’m thinking,” Pinto mocks him.

“You know, you sound much better when you’re not faking the accent,” Sam says. “We watched you play. You must be a good pilot.”

“Sure and glory,” he answers in his broadest accent, “Is that what you be wanting? Or be you thinking to get the credits, like the others do.” He laughs, a harsh sound. “Or mayhap just a wee tattooed tumble i’ ya bed?”

“You won’t give up, will you?” Dean stands up. “Damn, you’re stubborn. We knew a Ridani girl once. You remind me of her. That’s why. Now go to sleep.” He pushes Sam out the door ahead of himself and shuts the door behind him.

  


.oOo.

  


In the morning Dean’s making breakfast when the door to Dorothy’s bedroom opens. It’s immediately apparent when Pinto steps blinking into the morning light that he shares another trait with Paisley besides that quick fluidity of movement and grace. He has the beauty that only people who’re entirely innocent of their own handsomeness can have, untouched in a curiously immediate way. Even with the cut puffy lip and swollen eye his face and the stark patterns illuminating it are striking.

He wears the shirt and pants Cas sewed for Dorothy months ago. On the Ridani the blue garments hang loose, the trouser legs rolled up to reveal his swollen ankle and the geometric patterns marking both of his feet and toes.

“I found these clothes.” He’s strapped his broken arm against his chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean them. Mine aren’t fit to be worn right now.”

“The owner’s not coming back any time soon,” Sam comments from where he’s sitting.

An uneasy silence settles.

“You said I would ache like the Mother’s own wounds,” he speaks at last. “I do.”

“Then sit down.”

“It’s not fitting.”

Dean turns from the counter. “What’s not fitting?”

The stark three tone pattern on his face seems to highlight his stubborn expression. “By kinnas, I owe you my service. You cannot then serve me instead. It’s dishonorable.”

“Shit.” Dean brings the tray of food and juice to the table. “To you or to us?” When his expression doesn’t change, Dean laughs, an echo of Pinto’s mockery last night. “I thought as much. Will you sit down? I don’t know what you mean by kinnas, so how can it affect me?”

“Of course you don’t know what it means, ya _pfosten_ ”

“Please sit with me,” Sam asks.

There’s a pause. He limps over to the couch and sinks down beside Sam with obvious relief.

“Have some juice?”

He accepts it, grudgingly.

“Tell us what kinnas is.”

He eats all of his food first. Sam lets him eat all his, without letting Pinto guess it was his, because he’s obviously starving.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says finally. “Kinnas is honor. Acceptance of duty. The pattern you’re marked with. Fate. It’s knowing self-control. It’s integrity, humility. It’s defiance. Do you get the idea?”

“The kinnas wheel,” Dean utters, caught in trying to remember Castiel’s words. He doesn’t notice the surprise on Pinto’s face. “The wheel of the night. The… the honor that—” His eyes fix on the window, seeing passed the tops of the park trees to a more distant scene of trees and moonlight. “The honor that patterns you. But also, the promise of love.” His eyes drops, a blush creeps up his skin across his cheeks.

Amazingly, Pinto laughs. Not derisive, not mocking, just softly amused. “I’ve used that line myself,” he says in a companionable voice. “It always works. But that doesn’t mean—” he adds hastily, facing the sudden hostility of Dean’s eyes and the hot flush of anger on his freckled complexion. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He smiles, a smile of astounding sweetness that transforms his face. “Because it’s true.”

  


.oOo.

  


“Who is that man,” Castiel demands before anything else, “the one I talked to yesterday while you were out?” His face is marked by lines of exhaustion, more pronounced than usual and the apricot blush of his lips has a hard set that the faint static of the terminal’s picture can’t conceal.

“What—Pinto?” Dean glances back over his shoulder. Pinto, reading on his comm-screen as he lies on the couch looks up at the sound of his name. “A refugee,” he finishes. “You look tired, Cas.”

“Do you suppose I got any sleep at all last night?”

Dean stares at the screen. Behind him a slight cough signals Pinto’s rise from the couch and his slow limp into Dorothy’s bedroom. “You’re tired,” Dean speaks at last after Sam has also shut their bedroom door as well.

“Has the beauty left in a tactful manner?” Although Castiel’s expression hasn’t changed, Dean feels an undercurrent rising in his tone like the telltale sparking harshness in an overheating mineshaft engine.

“Oh yes,” Dean snarks. “He’s back in the bedroom with the other ten beauties Sam and I invited to move in with us since you’ve been gone. Don’t be ridiculous. Have you heard anything of Dorothy? I hear her speeches, but she’s disappeared as thoroughly as Bobby.”

It could just be the inconstancy of the terminal’s picture; but the blue of Castiel’s eyes seem to spark deep in his wide irises. Dean realizes he’s not listening to him. “I’m coming home.”

“Don’t bother. Not if that’s your only reason.”

“Don’t threaten me, Dean.”

“Threaten you? Do you think I’m going to change the locks?”

“You’re mine, Dean. Don’t you understand that yet?”

A shrill whine shatters his anger. Behind Dorothy’s desk Baby switches appendages and welds new supports into the carriage that supports her when she goes out with Sam and Dean. The whine fades, replaced by a soft spitting growl.

“Cas,” Dean continues in a quieter voice. “Listen to me. I think you’d better come home so you can rest. You must be exhausted.

For a moment he thinks Cas will comply. “He’ll be gone, won’t he?” he asks.

“I told you he’s a refugee and a hypersensitive bastard, too. But we saved him from being beaten up, Cas. We can’t… I won’t throw him back on the street, not the way things are now. Not with people blaming Ridanis for the state of emergency. You of all people should know that.”

“If you’ve touched him, I’ll have to kill him, you know,” he replies in a perfectly calm voice.

“Damnit. Why don’t you just kill me and then all our problems would be solved.”

Baby’s welding sputters and gives out and she sings a brief question.

On the screen, Castiel’s expression changes. Now he looks horrified. “Don’t be offensive!” That undercurrent has risen entirely to the surface. “Never say that to me again!”

“Never tell me how to conduct my life.”

“You don’t understand.”

“If I don’t, whose fault is that?”

He says nothing, only stares at his screen, at the image he must have of Dean. Tight mouthed, flushed with anger, hurt. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he whispers still intense and wild. “Don’t hate me.”

“Cas, you’re becoming irrational.”

“No, I’m not. That’s the frightening part.”

“Are you coming home or not?”

There is a long silence. Baby blinks at him from Dorothy’s desk, but he ignores her.

“Cas?” he asks, suddenly afraid, because his expression has changed yet again. The wildness has drained from his face, but the bleak resignation that’s replaced it is somehow more ominous.

“No,” he says. “Forgive me, Dean. I should never have slept with you. You have no idea—” He flinches, as if at some terrible decision. “It’ll be better for you if I never see you again. Believe me, Dean. I’m sorry.”

“Cas!”

But the connection is cut and Dean is left staring at a blank screen. He reaches out and turns the terminal off. The silence is deafening.

A door clicks open. “Be it he don’t care for ya tattooed company,” Pinto comments from the doorway.

Dean stands up so quickly his chair tips over, clattering to the floor. “Do you think the whole planet revolves around whether or not you’re tattooed? Don’t you have anything better to do than feel sorry for yourself?”

“You didn’t have to bring me here.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“Dean!” Sam snaps from the doorway into their bedroom. Dean turns and looks at his brother. They’ve been sharing the room since Pinto moved in. It had taken some creative rearranging of furniture but they managed to squeeze the cot Sam used before Dorothy left into the room.

For a long moment no-one moves. Finally Pinto limps to the couch and sitting, raises a tattooed arm to cover his eyes as if from a bright light. “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he tells them in a soft voice. Sam moves out of the doorway and sits next to him.

“Void help us,” breaths Dean. Outside he can see the clouds lowering grey over the park and rain starting to fall, forcing a pair of Security officers to find shelter under a tree. The fine mist veils the scenery beyond.

He aches. Like Pinto’s bruises, that after two days still violate the patterns of his face and body, but Dean’s hurts are fresh and don’t mark him physically. He sighs, willing himself not to remember his last glimpse of Cas’ face.

He reaches out and flicks on the terminal again. Its noise will at least obliterate his thoughts. Senators Alastair, Abaddon and Azazel flicker into view on the screen.

“Damn this,” says Dean as the camera focuses in on Senator Alastair’s high-boned thin face. He reaches to switch the channel.

“Turn it up!” Pinto asks urgently. He lowers his arm.

“Shit,” mutters Dean. But he happily glares at the screen, willing to have another victim to vent his frustration on.

“—doctrines such as those Athena preaches lead to every sort of crime and encourage every sort of criminal to embrace such sentiments in order to indulge in an orgy of felonious villainy. Shall we let murderers and thieves and whores rule us? Shall we hand the controls of our ship to illiterates, to common tattoos, to wreckers and rioters? Where then shall our cargo, our people, our children, end up? Lost in a window? This is what agitators such as Athena wish for you, citizens. This is—”

“Must we listen to this idiot?” Dean switches off the volume.

Pinto doesn’t seem to be listening. His lips have a grim set look to them and his eyes, although focused on the Senator’s face, seem instead to be fixed on a scene beyond the screen. He looks up when Dean switches to a weather channel. “Don’t tell me that offends you,” he says. “‘Shall we hand the controls of our ship to _common_ tattoos?’ What eloquence!” For an instant he looks about to cry, but the expression passes to a sneer.

“Where were you educated?” Sam asks. “Pilot and all?”

“Not downtrodden and ignorant enough for you?” he asks sarcastically. “And here I was thinking you must be a Jehanist sympathizer. That irresistible desire to help the oppressed. So noble.”

Dean’s too drained by his argument with Cas to respond with anger. At first he just stares at Pinto and he shifts his good arm as if to protect himself.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Baby’s sudden sung phrase causes them all to jump. Dean turns quickly.

“What’s she saying?” asks Pinto.

With one hand resting on Baby’s surface, Dean leans forward to examine the writing that now scrolls up on the terminal. It’s in code and he can’t decipher it.

_Who’s this from, Baby?_ he asks.

_Classified message. Request meeting. Information transfer. Highest secrecy. Location: Peterborough Overrun, paternity. Imperative: twenty hundred hours._

“But who is it from? When?”

_There is no signature, but the code is identical to that used by Athena’s transmissions. It requests, I surmise, a rendezvous for tonight since no date is given. All contained herein supposes the greatest need for action._

“But where the Void is Peterborough Overrun? What is it?”

He realizes abruptly that Pinto’s standing at his shoulder, careful not to touch him, but peering around him to read the screen. Dean shifts to hide it from him.

“Don’t tell me you’re a Jehanist,” Pinto says. “I know where Peterborough Overrun is.”

“Can I get there by twenty hundred hours?”

“You’d have to leave within the hour to get there by twenty hundred. It’ll take at least eight hours to get there, more with the rail delays.”

“Can you show us how to get there?” Sam asks. Dean moves, no longer bothering to conceal the screen.

“You are Jehanists, aren’t you,” he states. “I’ll take you. I know shortcuts that I can’t explain to you”.

“Why?”

“Why do you want to help us?” Sam expands on Dean’s question.

“Tables turned, aren’t they?” he says gleefully. “You’d never believe me. Just remember, you hold my kinnas. I can’t break that. ‘Whither thou goest, I shall go.’ Something like that.”

“Do you mean we’ll always hold your kinnas? Forever?”

“No. Only until it’s returned. And if I’m lucky tonight, I’ll save your lives, or your dearest one’s life and be free of you.”

They leave within the hour, leaving Baby to monitor.

Pinto knows shortcuts. Sam and Dean exchange looks often, wondering where Pinto learned them because several of them involve sections of rail reserved for government use. They arrive at Peterborough Overrun at twenty-oh-five hours.

It’s simply an interchange of rail lines. Despite the state of emergency it’s crowded, travelers changing trains to a myriad of destinations: Scarborough, Warwick, Rosedale. Security mans the entrances to the trains to Inglewood, Darlington, Subadar.

“Fuck.” Dean pauses along a wall to survey the shifting mass of color and movement.

“Who are you meeting?” asks Pinto. “What does he look like?”

“Paternity,” says Dean. “Is there a destination called Paternity?”

Pinto blinks. “Is that what it says? Nothing I’ve ever—

“Dean look.” Sam is pointing at one of the displays where a list of destinations and platform numbers are scrolling. Near the end is Winchester platform K7.

“Might as well try it.”

“Pinto watch out for Security. We’ll look for him.”

“Goodness,” says Pinto mockingly. “In deep company, I be. There it is.”

The crowds shift around them as they head to K-level and platform 7, a constant flow that ebbs and lulls in spurts. Busy, intent on their own purposes, these are people linked to Central, Dean thinks, and happy enough with the current government. He glances at Pinto beside Sam, at two women in construction worker’s coveralls and at a single tattooed man sweeping the floor.

The stream of people sweep past them. In the gaps between them, Dean sees a trickle of arrivals coming through the turnstile one by one, like they are presenting themselves to him and then blending into the crowd.

All but one.

He stops so suddenly that Sam and Pinto run into him one after the other and they stagger forward two steps. “Shit,” he breathes.

The man has stopped just beyond a turnstile, putting a hand in his jacket pockets as any traveler might fumbling for some remembered item. But his eyes sweep the crowd twice unobtrusively. Dean notices it because on the first circuit they met his. He smiles.

Dean walks forward like he’s blind, weaving his way through the press of traffic by instinct and is standing in front of him before he realizes that he might be attracting attention.

But he’s still smiling. “Well, Dean,” Bobby says. “I was hoping you would be the one to meet me here.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Yeah I’ve finished,” Bobby tells them. “There’s just one last appointment I have to keep, I’m going to it now.” The clacking of the wheels keep time with his words. “I know what I need to know and I’ve got something to give to you, Dean. A final gem of information for our friend.” He glances at Pinto, sitting stiff and reserved next to Sam and opposite Dean.

Dean also looks at Pinto.

“I can get off at the next stop,” says Pinto.

Bobby smiles and asks something in a language Dean doesn’t recognize. Pinto looks surprised, then suspicious. But his reply, in the same language, is brief.

“Ah,” Bobby speaks. “If they have your kinnas then I see we can trust you.” Pinto speaks again, a rush of words this time, but Bobby waves him to stop. “I don’t know the language that well and in a much different dialect.”

“But you do know it,” Pinto states. “You must possess the kinnas of one of my people.”

“A long time ago and he is, I’m afraid, dead now.”

Pinto nods his head, a gesture so respectful and meek, Dean can only stare at him, then Sam, and finally at Bobby. “Is it all settled?” he asks, leaning closer to Bobby. The noise of the train as it rattles along the track masks his words. “How do you know we can trust him?”

“Kinnas is a strong force, Dean. Don’t underestimate it. In any case, never pass on an ally, if you have a moment to gather one. You never know when you may need them.”

Dean sighs. “Why didn’t you tell us you traded me for information? To Dorothy?”

Much to their surprise, Bobby laughs. “I never realized what I made you two into,” he tells them, “not until you came running to my rescue. Well ‘You are my greatest adventure.’” he quotes. His nondescript grey shirt and trousers blend into the grey metal of the train benches they all sit on. “Now I’m certain.”

“Certain of what? You talk in circles a lot, Master Smith. You’re very good at concealing information.”

“Master Smith? This will not do, my child. You’d better call me Singer.”

“That’s what Ellen called you,” Dean remembers. “Don’t tell me that’s your real name?”

“The one I was born with.” The admission slips so easily from him that at first Dean thinks he’s heard incorrectly. The train pulls into a stop. The doors slip open and a blast of fresh air enters along with the new passengers. “Robert Steven Singer,” he continues. His voice takes on a rolling, lilting quality that mirrors the roll of the train as it starts forward again. “Or so I was baptized in the church of the Blessed Mother, in Gwynedd District, planet Terra, in the year of the New Age 216.”

“Robert, son of Ed and Sarah. They were devout believers, or at least my mother was and she rather held sway, in terms of cultural transmission at any rate.” A pause, during which Dean simply regards him with astonishment as the train descends into a tunnel. “On the other hand,” he continues in his normal voice and without much regard to Sam and Dean’s surprise, “I suppose you can’t, having no knowledge of Cymru.” A wordless shake of their heads confirm that statement. “Perhaps I did neglect your education,” he murmurs, more to himself than to them. “Well boys, regrets never lead you forward. Remember that.”

“Of course,” Sam says in a breath, like he fears too loud an expression will cause Bobby to disperse into the air from which he almost seems to have come back to them.

If Bobby was born N.A. 216, if the Riven’s calendar is still in line with that of their ancestors’, then Bobby is more than 120 years old. “Damn,” Dean says. “Are you really that old?” he whispers.

Bobby scowls.

Dean realizes abruptly this is not a subject he wants to discuss in such surroundings. “What is it like, where you were born?” he asks instead.

“Green and low and rich.” That lilting, musical quality is in his voice again. “Not rich in credits or great vast fields of grain or outward things, rather poor in outward things, in truth. But rich in the heart, in the mountains worn down by the ages of life lived about them and the small jewels of lakes and the small fields of corn and the sea, brushing the shore. And song, of course. I think I sang before I talked. Air to breathe, rain, the soft winds; the kind of beauty that never leaves you, even when you’ve left it far behind you. We moved to the city when I was fourteen.”

“Didn’t you ever go back? Even to visit?”

“I meant to, once. There’s a lesson there. One of the secrets of a saboteur’s life. That the life you have to lead is this life, the one you’re living now, is what you’re living for.” His face bears equal parts bittersweet memory and distant gleam of anticipation. “Never hesitate, once you’ve decided on a course of action. I hesitated and I may have lost the chance to return to the place where I was born. But—” With an encompassing gesture of one hand, he dismisses the past.

“But regrets never lead you forward,” Dean states.

“You’re very wise, Dean. You must’ve been well taught.”

“Certainly not,” he replies grinning. “We were lucky to survive our training.”

He grunts. “See how like me you are. By the time I was twenty I was in jail. I robbed, rioted, fought and hated until the law grew sick of me. But Sensei came. She worked with delinquents, succeeded rather better with me than anyone expected. I got out early on good behavior and studied at her Academy for ten years, like you, although you two both avoided prison.”

“We did run away once,” Sam points out.

“Isn’t that why the Sar sent you to me in the first place? You were sullen children.”

“Were we?”

“Yes, but full of energy.” His hands lay unmoving on his lap, like the symbol of his inner composure. “After ten years, my sensei told me she’d taught me everything she could. She told me I was good, but that I’d never be a true master of the art.”

“But—”

Bobby raises a hand, interrupting him, and frowns. “She said I was too impulsive. That it was a quality I couldn’t unlearn. I competed for a few years after that in martial arts tournaments. It’s a very popular sport in the League, like three-di or Bissterlas is here. After that I became an actor.” He chuckles at their expressions. “No, not one of your network actors. I studied acting for six years and then joined a repertory company on Sirra—that’s one of the League planets—and after that was offered a gem of a position in the Chaucer Repertory Company. It’s while I was with them that I learned patience and caution, and where I met the old man. The Duke. He recruited me for the rebellion, for the band of all work. That’s what I did for the next forty years, until, of course, we won.”

“You were rebelling against the Kapellans, weren’t you?”

“Has Angel been talking to you? What history do you know?

Dean considers. Beside him, Pinto dozes. Across the aisle, a man reads, a woman sleeps, a child holding her hand. Sam, of course, he’d already shared everything that he’d learnt with Sam. But where to start? Sam nodded at him and Dean knew he needed to start at the very start.

“Humans came from a few neighboring systems, explored and found the Cirriath. But the population grew too fast so they shipped out whole populations on the Lowroad ships. That’s how we got here. But the coordinates back to the home worlds were lost. Even when the Highroad Fleet showed up no-one could get back. A couple ships, those that Central didn’t impound, tried to. Maybe they did. But usually it’s said that they got lost on the way and just drifted forever.”

“The Highroad Fleet.” The train rattles on through the tunnel, black walls like starless space. “The _Victory_ was the flagship of that fleet.”

“You know about it?”

“Of course. It was legendary. The hard-luck fleet, they called it. Twenty-eight of the finest ships ever built, sent out to explore and search for the earlier colonizations—like Riven space—and three of those ships returned. The vector drive was new. I suppose they just hadn’t got the hang of it yet. Obviously some of those ships got out here, but none ever returned with news of the Riven that I know of. And the League had more pressing problems. But it’s the names I remember—they struck me so: _Victory, Tonnant, Euryalus, Neptune, Defence, Sirius, Royal Sovereign—_ ”

“The _Royal Sovereign_!” Dean interrupts. “That’s the name of the ship that old spacers say haunts the route back. Out beyond Nevermore and Blackwall.”

“What, like the _Flying Dutchman_? No, I don’t suppose you’ve heard that story. Well, it makes one wonder.”

“What problems did the League have?” Sam tries to get them back on track.

“The Kapellans.”

“That’s right,” says Dean. “You and Castiel and Sensei Barnes were terrorists.”

For a moment, when Bobby frowns, Dean understands why Castiel and Ash refer to him as a tyrant. “Angel has been talking. But not, I dare say, ‘bout the right things.”

“He wasn’t that forthcoming,” he retorts. The look he directs at Bobby, one eyebrow quirked slightly up, his mouth’s line bent with a softly sardonic pull, causes Bobby to chuckle.

“Like me? Yeah that accusation is true. But it’s just as bad to tell too much. That’s a lesson one learns as a saboteur. Always stay one step ahead of the pursuit. Especially if that pursuit is Kapellan in origin. We ran into the Kapellans in the course of our explorations, or they into us.” Bobby shrugs, “Who knows? For a decade or two they treated us like younger siblings. Offered us their vector drive.

“Of course, they were merely sizing us up and about the same year the hard-luck fleet went out, our twenty-eight best ships, they decided it was time for the League to join their Empire. We had no choice. We were their subjects for more than two hundred years. But in the last forty of those years we built the revolt. We broke their systems from within and when the call came for the League to take up conventional arms, the Kapellans were partly crippled, and we succeeded.

“What’d you do? Besides blow up space stations and running an entire Kapellan fleet into their vectors wrong?”

“Angel didn’t know about… Has Ash been talking to you?”

Realizing Ash would hear about it someday, Dean merely shrugs. “I don’t remember. There are so many stories.”

“Touché,” he acknowledges. “Which means, ‘your point.’ We did everything. Blew things up. Killed people when we had to. Rerouted information so it never got where it was meant to go. Sent false information in its place. Sabotaged entire computer systems, mechanical systems, so they’d shut down when we wanted them to. It was very effective.”

“Now the League and the Empire live with a very jittery truce, abetted on our side by a huge privateer fleet that works the neutral territories which divide us from them and by the Kapellans’ natural aversion to violence.”

“But if you helped bring about the League’s freedom, why’s the League hunting you?” Sam asks

“Because we know too much. Because they don’t trust us, ‘our kind,’ as Angel would say. Why should they? We dealt double-sided decks for so long that we could as easily pass our loyalty to yet another side. The Duke protected as many of us as he could while he still lived, but most of us chose to go underground. That’s how I ended up on Kansas. I never expected to find the Riven. I’d no real idea that it existed, just old records of a colonization seeded this way.”

“How’d you get here then?”

“I knew someone who shall remain nameless, who knew someone who is nameless, as far as I was concerned, who was willing to ferry me around until, much to my surprise, I found Arcadia and Pamela. How she got here I don’t know and she hasn’t shared. Pamela directed me toward Kansas.”

There’s another stop and the dozers startle awake, then settle back. Through the windows of the train, Dean sees the station sign, the ubiquitous Security in doubled numbers and a pair of tattoos emptying trash. With three coughing lunges, the train lurches forward and smooths into its clacking glide.

“Did you like it?” he asks.

“Like what?”

“Being a terrorist.”

“Did I like it?”

“Enjoy it, I mean. You did it for forty years.”

“I suppose I enjoyed it, as anyone enjoys work at which they excel. But I did it because it needed to be done. The Duke himself chose me. I was one of the first and in my own way I helped develop our methods of working.

“What about Cas?”

“I don’t think he joined because he loved wreaking havoc. That’s more April’s or Gabriel’s nature. I think maybe he did it because it gave him a place, a duty as it were.” Bobby hesitates. “Please never agree to marry Cas by the customs he’d urge on you.” He raises a hand to forestall comment. “I know I’ve no right to say that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep him as your lover. You’ve less choice about that than either of us imagines, I think.” He pauses. “Dean. What’s wrong?”

“He said—” Dean’s throat is too tight to allow words. “He said—”

“Poor child,” Bobby murmurs.

“He had to go to the clinic. I haven’t seen him for weeks. Then he called and said—he said he should never have slept with me. He said it would be better for me if I never saw him again.”

“Did he now? Mother bless us.” Bobby looks up to see Pinto watching them.

“It’s my fault,” Pinto says, his voice low. He glances around the compartment like he’s afraid he might be overheard. “I answered the terminal when Sam and Dean were out. I don’t think he liked me. Maybe I was a little rude.”

Dean lifts his head at these words. “That’s not true, Pinto. It’s nothing to do with you, not really.”

“Mother bless us,” repeats Bobby. “What’re you going to do?”

“When we get back, I’m going down there,” Dean answers, a bit defiantly. “I’ll make him come back.”

Bobby squeezes his shoulder, Dean pulls away, regarding him. “You still haven’t told me—”

“Why Dorothy Baum?” Bobby finishes. “Because I had to be sure, Dean, that you and your brother could take the burden. And what did you do?”

“What’d we do? With Dorothy? We helped her,” Dean laughs bitterly. “It was a test, wasn’t it? Did we pass?”

“Of course you passed,” Bobby’s voice is equal parts sorrow and joy. “You helped her.”

“You don’t believe in Jehane anymore than I do, do you?”

“Jehane? Who knows what he’ll turn out to be. But I like Dorothy. She’s clean, genuine and honest. ‘Of one growth.’ That’s the root of the word ‘sincere.’ And I needed someone to bond you. But I have to admit it’s impossible to resist assisting a saint.”

“Being so far from one yourself?” Dean asks, chuckling. “It’s the same reason I helped her, at first. Later I got to like it.”

“My spirit choose wisely.”

“What do you mean?”

Bobby makes a gesture with his arm, small in the constricted space, so as not to draw undue attention, but very expressive. “‘Yet all aesthetic contemplation affords only a short-lived respite from the vigilance of an ever wakeful consciousness and true liberation can only be achieved by the saint, the moral hero, the great ascetic, whose ‘will to live’ has vanished, who has seen through the illusion of the senses and who practices resignation.’” He finishes with a flourish fit for an audience. Pinto regards them curiously. The man diagonally across from them looks up from his comm-screen.

“That’s all well and good,” Dean says in a low voice, “for a Byssinist like my mother, who’s devout, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with me.” The man across the way shrugs and returns to his reading.

“We’re not the stuff from which moral heroes are made, you, Sam and I. In the end that’s how I recognized you as my sons. Your complete inability to practice resignation.” His frown is so soft it might as well be a smile.

“You know, I often wonder. The Ridanis say something like… the patterns on their bodies reflect the pattern of the universe” Sam pauses to glance at Pinto, but his eyes are closed again. “That gives them purpose. Byssinists strive for annihilation, or dissolution in the Void, or well the illusion of the sense vanishing. But what about people like us? If we can’t be moral heroes, then what meaning is there for us in life?”

“That’s the real secret, ain’t it?” Bobby stares out at the rushing wall of the tunnel like he can read something there. It’s only blank to Dean. “What meaning is there for us in life?” His eyes, returning to Sam and Dean, have nothing unsure or bewildered in them, only steady certainty. “Only what we bring to it. For our kind, that’s enough. That’s one of the reasons we’re so dangerous.”

“Are we? Did passing the test include us in ‘our kind’? You haven’t told us what our burden is yet.”

“Haven’t I? You are my sons, Sam and Dean, the sons of my spirit, my only true children. You Dean, are Singer’s heir. I declared you on the bridge of _Harvelle’s Roadhouse_ , which makes it bound and legal and as any legal document, available to the public without constraint.”

“But you have other children. Ash and his twin. Sam.”

“Heir. From the Latin _heredem—heres_. You’re Singer’s heir, Dean. You alone. That makes you dangerous, it makes you feared, but most of all, it makes you very valuable. Don’t ever forget that.”

The train slows, clacking half-time, quarter-time, stopping.

“We get out here,” Bobby tells them.

Pinto starts up, looks at the station signs. “We should stay on another six stops,” he protests. “This isn’t the interchange for Malvern.”

“I’m not going to Malvern.”

Dean shakes his head when Pinto starts to speak again and the Ridani has no choice but to trail them as Sam and Dean follow Bobby off. The station is crowded, but even so Bobby walks very close to Dean, Sam and Pinto slightly behind. Dean feels a hand slip into his jacket pocket.

Bobby’s leaning on him almost like Dean’s supporting him. “You now have a data crystal,” he whispers. “Jehane’s latest movements. He’s taken Hexham. I’ve finally calculated the pattern of his movements. He’s good, is Jehane. He’s encircling, slow and in a few years he’ll cut Arcadia off. This’ll help Dorothy no end. Don’t let anyone else see it.”

“But—you think he’s going to win?”

Bobby shrugs, drawing slightly back from Dean now. “Times come when change is necessary. It’s a natural process.”

“Things are born, grow and die,” says Dean, thinking of the animate disorder of the park. “And make way for new things. Is that what you mean?”

Bobby stops him in the midst of the crowd. Sam and Pinto stop as well. “Words can mean anything, Dean. It’s the gesture that’ll tell you the truth.”

He pulls Dean in for a one armed hug. “I love you, Dean,” he says. “Never forget that.”

“You’re leaving me again,” Dean accuses.

“No matter what happens,” he says. “You don’t know me. That’s a command, Dean.” Bobby studies Dean’s face for an instant, then with a brief smile he slips away into the crowd.

“Damn it,” he says. “No.” And he follows, trailing Bobby, Sam and Pinto at his heels.

“Dean,” Sam hisses, “he said—” Dean ignores him.

They’re halfway across the station, Bobby a good hundred meters ahead of them, when the white uniforms burst through the crowd in a tight phalanx.

“Citizens! Stand where you are.” The announcement crackles over the loudspeakers. “Do not move. All entrances have been sealed by order of Central Security. You are in no danger if you stay where you are.”

Movement comes to a stop so quickly that Sam and Dean, still moving forward, barely avoid running into several people before Pinto grasps them by the arms and drags them to a stop.

“Don’t be idiots,” Pinto hisses. “Those are the Immortals.”

White uniforms disperse through the crowd, precise lines expanding in a spiral. The Immortals. Faces as clean of emotion as their uniforms are of color. Deathly efficient in their search.

A sudden flash of movement, a flurry of running. White spins and rolls inward, pressing civilians back, broadening an empty space in the center of the station.

“Encircle!” The command cracks out over the shocked silence of the crowd.

Against the people shifting back, Dean pulls forward until he and Sam are at the edge of the crowd. The Immortals have driven him out into the opening they’ve created. One woman in a white uniform staggers backward, clutching her abdomen. Bobby stands in fighting stance. The Immortals fall back slightly, but their circle fills in until the only spaces the crowd can see through is between and over shoulders.

Bobby faces them twenty at least, but he’s so alert, so poised for attack that no-one moves toward him none speak.

“Comrades!” Bobby calls into the unnatural silence. His voice fills the air, a ringing call that ensnares the attention of the crowd like a spell. “‘I see this system,’” he cries, “‘and on the surface it has long been familiar to me, but not in its inner meaning! Some, a few, sit up above and many down below and the ones on top shout down: ‘Come on up, then we’ll all be on top,’ but if you look closely you’ll see something hidden between the ones on top and the ones below that looks like a path but is not a path,’” his voice holds them, commands them to listen, even the Immortals. He’s grown like a trick or an illusion until he holds the entire station silent to listen to him, like he’s an actor quoting from some long forgotten play. “‘It’s a plank and now you can see it quite clearly, it is a seesaw, this whole system is a seesaw, with two ends that depend on one another and those on top sit up there only because the others sit below and only as long as they sit below; they’d no longer be on top if the others came up, leaving their place, so that of course they want the others to sit down there for all eternity and never come up’—”

A grey and white uniform shoulders through, appears on the edge of the circle. “Surrender to our custody and you will not be hurt!” the officer shouts.

“Surrender?” Bobby cries out. But his eyes are sweeping beyond the Immortals, beyond the man commanding them, to rake the crowd. “You are my hope,” he shouts and his words, his eyes, seem to pinpoint, to touch, each face, each individual. “‘Whatever happens, do not break ranks! Only if you stand together can you help each other.’”

The Immortals surge forward. He may’ve taken a couple out first, it’s hard to tell. Pinto keeps tugging them back and Sam and Dean keep pulling forward.

“He said—he said—” Pinto pitches his voice for their ears only, hiding under the crowd’s sudden noise. Sam falls back first then helps to pull at Dean. Finally Dean remembers Bobby words and lets them. More uniforms, the black and grey of Security, push forward. Dean doesn’t see them take Bobby out, doesn’t see him at all after the Immortals converge on him. He does see four Immortals being supported or carried toward the exits.

“Citizens!” The crackle of the loudspeaker sounds again, shushing the crowd into a frightened silence. “This station is now under Security’s jurisdiction. To those who are innocent of any treason against Central, we apologize in advance for the inconvenience.” A few groans greet this statement. “You will all be conducted for questioning to the precinct Security office. There will be no exceptions. Remain orderly and our task will run smoothly. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to evade this sweep. All exits are secured.”

“Bless the Void,” says a woman next to Dean. “Was that the agitator Athena?”

Her simple comment is taken up and spreads like fire through the crowd until it ranges out of Dean’s hearing.

Pinto pulls Dean around to face him. “Was that Athena?” he asks, urgent now as the black and grey uniforms of Security filter through the crowd and begin to line up the masses of stranded travelers.

Dean stares at him. His bruises still show under the pattern of his face, show along his arms. For an instant he marvels at how handsome he is. “It doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head, aware now how true that is. Bobby had known what was coming. Had probably set it up himself, to assist his saint, to give Dorothy time to move again and to mount the next campaign.

A woman in black and grey shoulders past a pair of clear-skinned men to come up to Sam, Dean and Pinto. “What’s a damned tattoo doing wandering loose in this district?” She beckons to a comrade.

“He’s our servant,” Dean answers quickly, but at the same moment he feels Pinto squeeze his arm slightly, a warning.

“Take this,” Pinto says with an assurance that surprises Dean and pulls a small data crystal from his pocket and hands it to the Security officer.

The officer begin to reply, some scornful comment, but her companion silences her. “Look at the damn seal,” he says. She does and whistles. “Yeah,” says the man. “We better get the captain.” He looks at Pinto. “All right. You and the two men can come with us.”

They turn and start to weave back through the crowd toward the entrance.

“Don’t worry.” Pinto motions Sam and Dean forward when they hesitate. The people around them stare at them.

“What do you think you’re—” Dean falters as he realizes the Security officers aren’t guarding them but rather leading them, expecting to be followed. “What are you doing?” he whispers. “You know I’ve got—” He stops. Pinto doesn’t know Bobby gave him a data crystal. “I can’t be questioned!” he hisses, leaning against Pinto.

“Don’t worry,” repeats Pinto.

“What, you know a damn Senator?” Sam asks.

He smiles, caustic and bitter. “How’d you think a damned tattoo got to be a pilot?” he asks back.


	20. Chapter 20

Dean looks numbly out the spotless windows of the opulently appointed railcar onto an early morning landscape that seems as much a dream as Bobby’s arrest. No noise, no crowding, no dirt. No house that ever exceeds two stories. No house within a hundred meters of the next. Flowers border the rail tracks, manicured and delicate. Lawns spread into the distance. Trees, entire groves of trees, demark estate boundaries. Whole apartment blocks, along with the tiny parks allotted them, could fit into some of these estates.

Has Dorothy seen this place with her own eyes or has she simply the sure instinct of righteousness, the ineffable faith that knows such wealth and selfish privilege exists and that it must come at last to an end?

Pulling into station, Pinto nudges Dean and Sam, gaining their attention before he stands. “Sure and here we be,” he says, drawling out the accent for the benefit of the two Security officers who escort them. Or guard them.

They come out of the station—a tiny building of some organic substance carved in an intricacy of overlapping shapes, curls and elaborate forms that cause the eye to linger disquietingly on the patterns of Pinto’s tattoos. Is there a similarity? Or is that just wild fancy?

An avenue, bordered by neat lines of low trees, stretches to a white house with columns and porticos and a glinting golden roof. Campbell House and all its mines might have fit under this estate, Dean thinks as they walk. The sun illuminates flowering bushes and tracts of brilliant flowers. The lawn is clipped to plush uniformity, spreading in all directions. In the distance, Sam spots and points out a charming cottage in the distance, barely a glimpse but enough to see its white walls streaked with green vines.

A walkway of cunningly fitted stones branches off the avenue and they follow it, curving into the shadows of a grove of slender trees, out onto a smaller lawn surrounded by a hedge. This lawn is, unlike the others they’ve passed, occupied.

A woman, old by her stooped back, rises from the two young children who sit on a blanket at her feet and turns. Her face, lined by the sun and by some old sorrow, bears a frown as she blinks into the light, but as sudden as a cloud clears the sun the frown vanishes into radiance.

“Jonathan!” she cries. She rushes forward, stopping an arm’s length from the young man to survey the two officers with disdain. “I’ll sign the manifest,” she tells them.

“Do you duly swear you recognize the citizens in question…” The Security officer drones his questions, gets her palm print and leaves, bored with the entire detail.

“Who’s hurt you?” the elderly woman’s indignation breaks through the joy in her bearing. She enfolds Pinto in a tender but encompassing hug that carefully avoids pressure on his bound left arm. “My dearest child,” she murmurs. “How I’ve missed you.”

“Nanna,” he says and Dean’s shocked by the affection in his voice.

She thrusts Pinto back from her, studying him with a long practiced eye. “How’ve you been, my darling boy? How’ve you lived these past years?”

He looks away from her. “Here and there. I got work from companies and captains desperate enough to employ me for as long as they had to. Between those times, I play three-di.”

“And is that how _this_ came about?” She’s scolding him, but her hand touches his bruised face with such gentleness that Dean feels compelled to look away, turning towards his brother.

“Nanna! Nanna!” The older of the two children, a girl of about Jody’s child Owen’s age, runs up and hangs with spoiled impatience on the woman’s skirts. Pinto stares down at the girl, an ethereal, blond wisp of a child, with an expression on his patterned face that Dean can’t read. “Nanna, we don’t want no tattoos here.”

“Mind your tongue Lilith!” The frown eases back onto the woman’s face. “Oh, Jonathan, you shouldn’t be here. When I got the call, I had to say yes, but he told you never to come back.”

Pinto lifts his eyes with an effort from the pale little girl and glances at Sam and Dean. “We have to see him.”

Nanna also glances at them, briefly measuring. “That’s impossible. You’re free from that trouble now. Can’t you go?”

“Please. Nanna. Please help me.”

That Nanna’s not proof against such a plea, Dean can see immediately. She disentangles the girl’s hands from her skirt. Pinto frowns, he’s obviously prepared for an argument, but just as obviously she can’t deny him. “I’ll take you in the back way. Go to his study. He’s always there at eight.”

“I know,” Pinto’s eyes stray to the exquisite blond child.

“Lilith.” Nanna’s voice is commanding now. “Can you sit with your brother for ten minutes without moving?”

“No,” states the child, staring with fixed hostility at Pinto.

“I didn’t think so,” Nanna agrees.

“Can so,” the girl reneges.

“Oh, I daresay not.”

“Can.” The girl runs back to the blanket and throws herself on it. A blond boy, barely able to walk, is holding onto a large animal shaped toy and gazing at Pinto with great interest. “Sit!” orders the girl to her brother. The boy sits.

“Come with me,” Nanna asks them.

Dean tries not to watch Pinto and Nanna as he and Sam trail behind them through the garden. They share such palpable affection for each other that Dean feels like an intruder watching them. They come to the house at last and Nanna relinquishes her darling boy with such genuine reluctance that Dean feels humbled witnessing it.

With a delicate key the old woman opens a door of wrought glass into an airy, comfortable room that holds a large desk, a terminal, two plush chairs and a wall of shelves displaying a myriad of exquisite curios. Dean sits in one of the chairs. It’s astonishingly comfortable. Sam moves to the shelves, looking at the books that they hold.

“Well?” Dean asks, contemplating Pinto as he prowls the room like a creature reassuring itself of its territory. “You got us out of that station pretty neatly, I’ll admit. But we don’t have much time. Now what?”

The other door, the one that leads into the interior of the house, opens. With his eyes raised to watch Pinto and his back to that door, Dean only has the young man’s expression to measure this new arrival.

His face opens, a look of such heartbreaking sweetness, such loving vulnerability, that an instant later, seeing that expression close into wariness, into a guarded tightness as though he’s bracing to receive a blow, Dean wonders if he dreamt what he first saw.

Dean stands and turns to face the newcomer as he shuts the door with a stiff deliberate shove that’s not welcoming. Of course Dean recognizes him. He could hardly fail to. It’s Senator Alastair.

“Hello, Father.” Under the vivid swirl of Pinto’s tattoos his bruised eye and lip seem just part of the pattern.

“I told you never to come near this house again. It would’ve been better if you’d left Arcadia completely.”

Pinto smiles cynically. “Certainly Sir, although you neglected to bribe a company to hire a common tattoo to pilot their ship.”

“Don’t come wallowing to me.” Senator Alastair crosses between Dean and Pinto to stand behind his desk. “You chose the profession. I paid your way into Central’s finest Academy.” In person, the sharpness of his thin face is emphasized by a pallor to his skin that’s not been evident on screen. His pale eyes survey Sam and Dean, snapping back to Pinto. “Who are these men?”

“My kinnas, Father. If you remember what that means.”

“Spare me that superstitious nonsense. Do you owe them credit, is that it? Am I to clear your debt? How much?”

“Just my life. However little that may be worth to you.”

For the first time Senator Alastair seems to take in Pinto’s battered face, the bandaged, immobile arm. Pink flushes his high boned cheeks. “Who did this?” he demands.

“Some of your military men. They were beating me for being too proficient at three-di.”

“Is that how you make your living now?”

“I don’t have much choice.”

The Senator pivots abruptly and strides to the glass door, his eyes lock on some sight out in the garden. “You ask a great deal of me, Jonathan. How can I possibly discharge such a debt?”

On the other side of the desk Dean looks at Pinto and finds he is regarding him steadily. Pinto takes one step forward. “Release the man you arrested last night,” he requests.

In the silence that follows this remark Dean notices how truly quiet it is here. Not the damped down hum of suppressed activity found in Malvern, nor the filter laden muffling that permeates Campbell House, but a stillness that can only grow in a place where a handful of people live in a space so enormous that it absorbs effortlessly the tiny noises of their existence.

Senator Alastair turns back to face him. “Athena?” he asks.

“He isn’t Athena,” Dean states. “You’ve caught the wrong man.”

Those pale eyes scrutinize him like he’s an alien. “If he isn’t Athena,” he says in that reasonable tone Dean recognizes from his broadcasts, “then who is he?”

“He’s our father.”

“I see.” The Senator settles himself carefully in his desk chair, propping his elbows on the dark surface of the desk, resting his chin on his clasped hands and regards Sam and Dean thoughtfully. With the fingers of his left hand he drums a slow soft almost mesmerizing pattern on the back of his right hand. “That’s a blatant lie. He’s far too young.”

“He’s older than he looks.”

“I’m older than I look.” The drumming stops. “I can afford the maximum dose of rejuv. Do you suppose I neglect to take it? I could give that man thirty years. How can he have sons your age?”

Dean’s so used to thinking of Bobby as older that it’s only now looking at Alastair he realizes the truth of his words. The Senator’s probably in his sixties. Rejuv might’ve kept his hair from greying, might’ve smoothed the wrinkles on his face, but the lines at his eyes have a deep set quality to them and even with his perfect posture his shoulders bear the burden of aging. That growing, unavoidable awareness of death.

Void help us, Dean thinks, he’s Castiel’s age. Bobby must be at least twice as old as him. He remembers how much Jehane had wanted them, thinking they were fugitives from the League. How much would this man want them if he thought they knew such secrets?

“He isn’t Athena,” Dean repeats.

“That may be true,” Senator Alastair replies. “But our evidence is incontrovertible. Sabotage. Our classified computer banks have been violated. Secret information’s been passed through an unknown conduit into the hands of whatever Jehanist sects fester on this planet. Do you think we would continue to tolerate this situation?”

“You can’t try him and sentence him as Athena if he isn’t Athena.”

Alastair lowers his clasped hands until they lie, reflected in the smooth sheen, on the desktop. “How do you know he isn’t Athena?”

“Because…”

The Senator smiles, as hard as stone, “If he isn’t Athena, then who is? It’s worth five hundred thousand credits to you.”

Dean looks at Pinto. He can see no resemblance between this hard man and the young Ridani. Pinto’s tattoos disguise his features too well. Perhaps their only likeness is pride.

“Get me Athena,” the Senator bargains, “and you can have your man and the credits. That’s the only offer I will consider.”

Did they even know what Dorothy looked like? Did they still think Athena was a committee, rather than an individual? But even as he thinks it Dean knows he can’t do it. Not really, not for Dorothy’s sake or for his own conscience, but because he knows with painful clarity, with a knowledge that he wishes he didn’t have, that Bobby would never forgive him for saving him with such a betrayal. _That’s a command, Dean._

“I’m sorry, Senator,” he replies in a voice that surprises him with its calmness. He doesn’t look at Sam, trusts that his brother understands, that he’ll play along. “If I could find Athena for you I would, but I can’t.”

“Very well spoken,” Alastair applauds and stands. The interview’s over.

“Father!” Pinto walks forward and grasps the Senator’s arm. “I know you can free him. Help me. Please, Father. You raised me as your own child, in this house. You educated me. You loved me once.”

He sees the resemblance. It’s that surprising sweetness of visage that can soften Pinto’s face for an instant. Dean sees it now, but not in Pinto, rather in the hard lines of Senator Alastair’s face, subdued now by another emotion as he lifts a hand to touch with infinite tenderness Pinto’s unbruised cheek.

“My child,” he calls him.

The door into the interior of the house clicks and accompanied by a light trill of laughter opens.

“And you must see my husband’s study. He won’t mind being disturbed.”

A vision enters ethereal exquisite as rare art. Stops, wide eyes taking in first Sam, then Dean and wider still Pinto with every evidence of astonishment. The door wide open houses two curious and extremely well dressed women. The vision herself is young, no more than Dean’s age and her blondness proclaims her to be the tiny Lilith’s mother.

“I’m sure you know Senator Abaddon and Nicole Elizabeth Polizzi, Alastair. But who are these,” the barest pause as she examines Pinto, “people.”

Alastair lowers his hand and with an impatient gesture shakes Pinto’s hand from his arm. “Nothing to worry about, my dear. I was just calling the guards.” With a firm finger he presses the desk intercom and speaks a concise command into the air. “They’ll be escorted off the estate.”

“You relieve me.” Her eyes don’t leave Pinto. Pinto’s eyes remain locked on Alastair. Into this gap the bright knowing voice of the taller of the two women at the door trespasses.

“Senator don’t tell me this is the same little tattooed boy who used to run tame about your house? Before you bonded with dearest Ruby, of course. You weren’t in company yet, Snooki, but I used to come over quite a bit with my sister when she was on senatorial business. It was such a lark. But Senator, I really wouldn’t have recognized him.”

“One wouldn’t expect you to, Senator Abaddon.” Alastair draws farther from Pinto, slipping around his desk chair so it stands between them. “It’s so very hard to tell them apart, after all.”

Snooki titters. The vision, Ruby, smiles.

“I must say it was a delightful prank while it lasted,” Senator Abaddon blinks maliciously into the glare of her audience. “But of course, while it could pass in a bachelor establishment, it wouldn’t be suitable for a family man.”

“Not at all,” murmurs Alastair. “There you are.” This last addressed to six blue-clad guards who wait respectfully in the hall until the three women move far enough into the room that they can pass through to stand, two each, by Sam, Dean and Pinto.

Pinto still stares at Senator Alastair, a horrified fascination. “I thought you would help me.” His voice has the hoarse roughness of a broken whisper. “I thought you would help me.”

At first the Senator won’t meet the young man’s eyes. “If not for my sake, sir…” Pinto’s voice breaks and Dean watches as a cold determination fills Alastair’s face. “If not for my sake, then at least for my mother.”

He lifts his eyes to meet Pinto’s, cold mask facing the desperate plea. “Remove them,” the Senator orders.

Pinto jerks away from the hands that close on his good arm, starting forward. The desk chair blocks him from the Senator. “You loved her!” he cries. “Don’t think I don’t remember that. You bought her beautiful dresses. You called her your beauty. You bought her jewels, you bought her anything she asked for. You built her the cottage on these grounds that I was born in! Can you deny that?”

Pale eyes inspect the clear vulnerability of Pinto’s face. The Senator sighs, a grandiose gesture. “Like the rest of her kind,” he says in the tone usually reserved for teachers imparting the obvious truth to their slowest pupil, “your mother is a common whore. One pays a whore, boy.”

Pinto looks as if blind at the Senator and when the two blue-clad guards step up beside him, laying their hands on his jacket, he seems not even to notice them. Beyond him, Ruby’s smile appears to be fixed into place on her face.

“You disgust me,” Sam speaks for the first time. The Senator’s eyes jump to him, his mask of dispassion slipping for a moment to reveal something much uglier underneath it. “You disgust me,” he repeats as if to himself and Sam uses the surprise his comment creates to edge forward toward Pinto. “You and the rest of your kind make me sick.”

The mask solidifies into a skin impervious to emotion. “There’ll be no scandal in this house. Remember that I can easily have you all executed.”

“He’s your son!” Dean leans on the desk, bracing his hands. The guards move up beside him.

“No female tattoo can possibly claim any one man for paternity.”

“You wouldn’t kill your own son!” Hands touch Dean’s arms.

The Senator shifts his eyes from Dean to Pinto. The young man’s eyes still haven’t moved from the Senator’s face, but he stands limp as a sleepwalker, all expression gone from his face. With a slow, thorough examination that sums up the worth of a soul in its scrutiny, the Senator surveys Pinto and then, with a light shrug, turns away from him to face Ruby and the other two women. “One piece of trash more or less is worth nothing to me,” he says. “Get them out of Central, by Ramsgate.”

Dean launches himself over the desk, grabbing the Senator. If he can only—but the Senator struggles against him. Three guards converge on Dean. Someone screams high pitched and piercing. Dean kicks, taking one guard down, a second grabs him and he loses his grip on the Senator. His left arm is caught, held vise like behind his back, Dean still tries to get at the Senator until the guards shove a gun against his temple.

They’re not gentle as they propel him out of the room. They shove Dean down a hall, down another hall, down steps, outside and throw him into a truck. Sam and Pinto are pushed in after him. The doors swing shut with a hollow crash, followed by the scrape of a bolt sliding into place.


	21. Chapter 21

Dean slams his fists into the closed door. “I killed him!” he cries. The metal doesn’t yield at all under his fists. The truck jerks forward, driving them to the gate. He hits the door again.

Behind him there’s a noise he doesn’t recognize. Dean spins in time to see Pinto collapse and Sam catch him. That sound again, not a cough, not a laugh, but as final as either of them. He’s crying, not even crying, but sobbing.

Sam lowers him to the floor, still holding him as the sobs wrack his body. His entire body, slender as he is, shakes with the force of his weeping, the wrenching sobs of the hopeless and lost.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers and he pulls Pinto into his lap and rocks him like a small child. He doesn’t resist. Perhaps he’s past resisting. He weeps against Sam, face pressed into his shoulder. In Sam’s arms, he seems fragile.

Dean kneels beside them and curls his body around Pinto, feeling his shuddering sobs, and looks at Sam.

He didn’t have a choice back there. By not betraying Dorothy as Athena, he didn’t betray Bobby. Still, there must be something they can do. There’ll be a trial. It could drag on for months. There must be another way to free Bobby. Pinto shivers between them and Dean tightens his arms around him.

Later, after Pinto’s lapsed into exhausted silence, Sam lowers him gently to lie on the floor.

There’s a narrow grill cut in the front of the vehicle above the cab. Standing, Dean can see the white sloping roof of the cab and beyond that a slice of the landscape.

“How long will it take to get to Ramsgate?” Sam asks, still sitting beside Pinto.

“Four hours.” He doesn’t move, arms wrapped around bent knees, eyes fixed on the dull floor. “Far enough that no suspicion will fall on him.”

Dean looks down from the grill. “I just hope we’re going toward Malvern and not away from it.”

“We are.” Pinto laughs, it’s not a happy sound. “Ya luck be running high, ain’t it?”

Dean turns back to the grill. Parks and buildings blur past. He presses one cheek against the hard metal, letting the rush of air gust against his face. Even stooping, his hair brushes the ceiling of their cell. He shuts his eyes.

Bobby Smith. Singer. He can reconstruct his face very clearly in his mind. It’s his scowl that Dean remembers best, but his smile that he loves most. Even at his gravest, the sensei instructing his class, a whispered jest, a stifled laugh at some mistaken command, would bring that smile to his lips, to his eyes, touching like a brief traveler before falling back into gravity. As long as Dean’s known him, Bobby’s always been quick to see humor, to respond to the absurdity in any situation.

Maybe that’s the quality which lends him patience and patience, more than anything, is what Dean needs now to win him free. He sighs. Patience, Dorothy, Sam, Baby and Castiel.

The wind courses along his skin, tangling the strands of his hair, slipping between his lips to dry out his mouth.

Castiel.

How can any one person be at once so impossible, with that strange obsessiveness and those disturbing lapses into instability and yet so very appealing?

This time when Dean sighs the breath touches a low sound in the back of his throat and he strokes his cheek briefly with the back of his fingers. But that soft pressure only makes him aware of the edge of steel cutting into his other cheek and he pulls his face away from the grill and the gusting air.

The grill has embedded its pattern into his skin, an impermanent tattoo marking one side of his face. “Pinto, look,” he says, displaying himself.

“I prefer not to,” he says into his knees. “The less I see of Central the better.” But some quality in Dean’s silence causes him to look up and for a moment Pinto stares at him. His lips quirk up. “You aren’t going to get into pilot’s academy looking like that.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t want to get into pilot’s academy then.”

Pinto’s smile lasts a brief space before he turns his face back down to rest on his knees. Dean sinks down between Sam and Pinto and allows the motion of the vehicle and the hissing blow of the wind to lull him to sleep. He dreams vividly of Castiel.

“Dean,” Cas says and his bronzed hands touch him. He sighs and presses into those hands.

“Dean.” He startles awake, pulling away from Sam. “We’ve stopped.”

The back hatch yawns open. The guards pull them out at gunpoint, handcuffing Dean’s hands behind his back. High walls surround them. In the far distance Dean hears a constant noise, like Kansas’ storms, a tumult that ebbs and swells but never ceases.

The guards stop them at the end of the alley next to a metal door. A beep sounds and one of the guards lifts his wrist band up to an ear, listening, and murmurs back into it.

“No use even trying to use the gate,” he says to his fellows. “There’s a broadcast running in a couple minutes about that Athena person. We’ll have to hike it down to Auxiliary Gate Five.”

They confer in undertones.

“… might’ve expected …”

“… not just the troops …”

“… we could go see …”

Deciding, they motion Sam, Dean and Pinto in through the door. The corridor they march down seems almost like a mine shaft. Smaller halls, like shoots into smaller veins, thrust off at intervals. They turn into one of these. It grows a little dim and they round a corner coming into an observatory that looks out, through plastic windows, over the great square that fronts Ramsgate.

The square lies outside of Central. The gate, a massive front of metal, towers sixteen meters above the square. Narrow terraces push out from the wall to hang over empty air. Figures in uniforms populate the terraces, manning big stationary guns.

“Here,” one of the guards speaks. “Let’s see what that broadcast is.” He flicks a switch on his comm-unit and Central Center snaps on.

“—the arrest of the agitator Athena yesterday provided conclusive evidence that this man only wishes to terrorize and disrupt the peaceful lives of the citizens of Arcadia. There is no so-called social liberation involved in this man’s agenda—”

Below, as turbulent as the first flush of a Kansas storm, a crowd of people have gathered, so many that Dean can’t even begin to estimate their number. Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand?

“All the gates.” From one of the guards, listening on a different frequency. “Everyone's got a mob like this.”

The speaker continues, the crowd sways, responding to his words, but not in sympathy. “—and after interrogation, Athena has admitted the truth of these allegations. Listen to me, citizens!”

A railing graces the transparent wall. Pinto grips it and stares down onto the plaza. From their vantage point they look on at an angle. The seething crowd is noiseless behind the window, the grim closed front of Ramsgate, the motionless troops stationed on terraces above. Afternoon shadows stretch out across portions of the crowd. A broad expanse of stairs lead up to the great entrance.

“—he has admitted, _admitted_ that this revolution is purely for gain, for what credits he can steal from the riches we have all worked for. And if you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe that I, elected head of your Senate, am telling you the truth, then simply wait a moment, citizens.”

On the far edges of the square, more bodies press toward the front, spilling out of the side avenues that lead from three angles into the six sided plaza.

“Yes! Athena himself will tell you the truth. He has recanted, citizens. He has repented. He admits he has lied to you, exploited you for his own ends. Hear him, citizens!”

The crowd presses forward, pushing up the steps toward the gate.

Dean looks at Sam then Pinto. They look at him and each other. The guards fall silent. Voices mumble in the background over the channel, someone is being led forward.

“Comrades.” It’s Bobby’s voice. So quiet they see the crowd still, as it strains to listen. “‘If you stay together they will cut you to pieces.’” Silence. A strange, popping noise, a shattering crash that echoes across the channel. “‘We advise you to stay together!’” he cries and his voice drowns out the yells coming from the background. “‘If you fight, their tanks will grind you to a pulp. We advise you to fight!’”

The crowd shifts violently like liquid building to a boil.

“Stop him—” A voice crackles through in static. “Pull the—”

“‘This battle will be lost.’” His voice. “‘And maybe the next will also be lost, but you are learning to fight and realizing—‘”

A flurry of yelling overwhelms him, but a second crash sounds and his voice calls out again, a cry that mesmerizes them all. “‘Realize that it will only work out by force and only if you do it yourselves—‘”

A shot, no echoing ricochet because it comes over the channel. Two more shots in quick succession.

Utter silence.

A murmured voice. A fourth shot, hard and final.

Dean doesn’t think. He goes for the door. Two guards grab him. He fights. He has to get to Bobby, to get to him. More hands. He kicks, he twists, but his hands are cuffed. He feels them pulling him backward. He fights forward. Sam at his side, getting further than he can, his arms free because the guards never cuffed him. Dean is thrown off balance and flung backwards. He hits the plexiglass so hard it stuns him. Sam’s pushed down beside him, gun to his head.

Dean’s half aware of Pinto clasping his hand, saying something urgent to him, but he can’t hear, can scarcely see. The plexiglass presses up against his face. At first he thinks the smoke coiling up in spreading screens throughout the crowd is his vision clearing. He can’t make sense of the whole, but there, a woman pushing away from a reaching finger of smoke. A man covering his face with his hands. A body, convulsing, carried by two men. Everyone is moving so slowly.

“—the traitor Athena—”

“—execution by—”

“—return to your homes or—”

Snippets of words that make no sense. An officer, up on a terrace, winces, staggers and falls. Below, a woman holding a gun, firing up. A man cowering, shielding two children. Another officer, on a farther terrace, recoils and falls to his knees.

“I’ve got to get to him,” Dean mutters.

His movements come up against Pinto. “It’s no use,” he hisses, trying to contain Dean. “He’s dead, Dean.” He pushes Dean back up against the wall. “And if you don’t stop, we will be too.”

Dean looks sideways at the guards holding guns pointed at them and stops moving. He turns and looks out of the window he’s kneeling in front of, Pinto on one side, Sam on the other.

The great guns shift, yaw down and to one side, aiming into the midst of the crowd. Five men shove through the crowd, running for the side streets.

The guns shudder to life, bursts like muffled coughing, like sobs shaking the plastic wall so slightly. But this time, they don’t fire smoke.

The square erupts into turmoil.

“Murderers,” Pinto breaths. “Mother bless us, they’re trampling each other.”

They stare down at the bloody tableau unfolding beneath them. “Come on,” growls one of the guards. “Do we got to stand and watch this? Let’s get rid of these three and go home.”

“He’s right,” says another. “It ain’t even a fair fight.”

Chaos is what they’ve been watching. Smoke rings the plaza. The sobbing of the guns echoes as if far distant from them. People flee in every direction. At the three avenues it’s like the crowd is recoiling back into itself, but into a space that no longer has room. All across the square bodies lay in tangled heaps, stained with the force of their deaths. Shot or trampled, who can tell the difference now? They can hear nothing of the horrific pantomime playing out, except for the muffled reports from the great guns above.

They drag Dean out of the room. Only once they are in the hall is he allowed walk. Pinto limps beside him, Sam is in front of them and they are all surrounded by too many guards to count. They make their way through the walls of Central which is basically a fortress.

Dorothy still lives. The real Athena still lives.

“That’s your mistake,” he mutters to himself, so softly that no-one hears him. He’ll avenge Bobby, that’s become clear to him. No matter what he has to do. Wait fifty years? Join Jehane? Blow Central into oblivion? Whatever it’s going to take. “So be it,” he vows.

Auxiliary Gate Five is barred and triple locked. Dean’s aware of things like that by then. The guards push them through the first set of bars and don’t even escort them to the outer gate, just remove the cuffs and open a series of barriers by remote control. But the final set of bars slides away to reveal a deserted minuscule plaza shaded by trees and by the lowering sun. Far away, more a suggestion than a definite sound, the frantic noise from distant Ramsgate rises and falls in waves.

A sudden report cuts through the lull, splitting off into a ricocheting echo around them.

“Run for the street,” shouts Pinto.

They run, but hear no further shots. Pausing in the lee of a row of lush trees, Dean sees Pinto is laboring. Dean drapes his good arm across his shoulders so Pinto can get weight off his bad ankle. His hard, gasping breaths come at least as much from pain as from being winded.

“Where’d that come from?” Sam asks. “The wall?”

“I don’t know. It might’ve been, but maybe from one of the houses out here. Let’s get out of here.”

“I hope you know where we are.” Dean surveys the narrow avenue that stretches out before them, four story buildings suspiciously silent and empty bordering it. Even with the growing dusk the windows stay unlit. “Because I don’t.”

“This should be Camden. If we can find a delivery depot, if the cargoes are still running, we’re only about four hours from Malvern.”

“If,” Sam echoes.

Pinto’s smile, shaded by the overhang of trees, is mocking and bitter. “Didn’t I tell you about my luck? It extends just as far as my literal survival. Sometimes I make the mistake of expecting too much of it.”

Dean stares at him. Stares at him so long that Pinto removes his arm from Dean’s shoulder and draws back from him. Then he realizes what Pinto was referring to. “I’m sorry about your father,” he says in a soft voice.

“Mother’s wounds,” he mutters. “Sam, Dean—” he falters. “Was he really… Is he really your father?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice shakes. “I’m sorry.” He begins to limp away from them.

“Are you all right?” Sam asks as they come up either side him.

He shrugs. “My ankle hurts.”

“Isn’t pain the price of life?” Dean asks with deep bitterness.

Pinto casts him a sharp, doubting glance that dissolves abruptly surprisingly into a smile. He lifts a hand, tattoos swirling in a maze about his palm and fingers, a maze that seems to extend into infinity. “The price of a soul,” he answers.

Dean grunts and pulls Pinto’s arm back over his shoulder, again helping him take the weight from his abused ankle.

Pinto’s luck holds true. They find Camden Depot just as twilight passes into night. The cargoes, controlled by some untroubled computer system, are still running on their blind, predetermined paths.

They switch lines once, having to wait an hour because a unit of government troops stop to rest on the platform dividing the depot. Cargoes roar pass at intervals, shaking them where they huddle in the dense shadows of old construction. Finally the troopers move on. The new line takes them to Malvern C Depot, five kilometers from the apartment. Clouds cover the wheel of the night and rain falls softly, clinging to them.

The dull misting hides them as they trudge along the edges of streets. Even the streetlights are unlit here, except at the intersections where the bulbs cast perhaps a third of their normal illumination. Sam’s hair sticks to his face and neck in scattered, lanky strips. Light reflects now and again off the bright beads woven into Pinto’s braids. Dean wonders how much longer he’ll have to wait until he can go and find Cas and stink his hands into his blue hair.

They come at last to the park. Around them the darkness eases away, as if dissolving into the steady mist of fine rain. Lines of vegetation, treetops etched against the lightening sky, hedges bulking with opaque thickness lower down, all of it appears in slow degrees around them as they cross the park following the path that circles the pond. The water’s covered in hundreds upon hundreds of ever expanding ripples that collide with each other in such a way that there’s no pattern. Farther, where the path curves, a solitary form leans against the railing that divides path from shore. Dean puts a hand out stopping both Sam and Pinto.

Something about the form, about the way it leans, the angle of its arms along its side, is familiar to Dean. It shifts, head turning and Dean knows it’s seen them.

“Come up behind me,” Dean whispers. As they near the form, it neither stands or tenses. Slender, long-haired, about Pinto’s height. Ten paces away she speaks.

“Is that you, Sarah?”

“Dorothy!” It comes out in an undertone. Sam and Dean close the gap between them with accelerating speed, sweeping her up in a hug. She thrusts them away almost at once.

“Is Sarah with you?” She glances behind them, measuring and dismissing Pinto’s form.

“Sarah?”

“My sister Sarah. I sent her up to the apartment to bring you down. I couldn’t chance the apartment being under surveillance.”

“But you’re dead, Dorothy,” Dean tells her bitterly angry. “No-one’s hunting you anymore.”

“Dorothy?” A new voice, soft, uncertain.

“Sarah.” She turns and a young woman, tall and slender, walks up beside her. She looks at Sam, Dean and Pinto and shrinks away, but Dorothy’s grasp pulls her back. “You remember Dean,” she says.

“But he isn’t up there. No-one answered, but the terminal must’ve been left on, because I heard singing.”

“Good,” says Sam and Dean at the same time.

“Who are they?” hisses Pinto, rain damping his voice so it only reaches Dean.

“It’s Athena, of course,” Dean answers not quite as quietly.

“The real Athena.” Sam clarifies. “The living Athena.”

“Let’s get inside,” Dorothy suggests, then continues. “I need your help, Dean.” She walks at a quick pace toward the block. Dean beside her, Sam, Pinto and Sarah behind. Dawn creeps, a slow seeping of color, into their surroundings.

“Where am I going now?” Dean asks.

“Off Arcadia,” she replies, like such a course were so self-evident that his question is superfluous. “To Jehane.”


	22. Chapter 22

They dry off, changing their clothes, careful with power because their block is suffering a brownout. Baby, ecstatic at Dean’s return, sings a hymn of thanksgiving and afterward plugs herself back into the terminal and searches the banks for outgoing ships.

“Why do we have to leave Arcadia?” Dean asks. There is no question that if he is going, so is Sam. They sit on every available surface in the apartment, while Dorothy rummages through her desk drawers.

“Because they’ll be looking for you.” She doesn’t look up from her task. “Not _you_ in particular, but Athena’s bond mate. Athena’s family. Athena’s roommates. They’ll want to tie up all the loose ends. I don’t doubt your capacity to protect yourselves, but your skills are more valuable elsewhere. I’d send Sarah too, but she won’t go.”

“Damn right I won’t,” Sarah agrees from the kitchen counter. “Now you really need someone to look after you.”

“Do you know where we were?” Dean asks. “We were in Central, talking to Senator Alastair.” She doesn’t pause. “Dorothy. I could’ve turned you in. I could’ve saved Bobby’s life by giving you to them in exchange.”

Her hands pause, half in a drawer, and her face, that face of complete conviction to its purpose, lifts up to look at him. “I know.”

Dean launches himself up off the couch he’d been sitting on with Sam. Two strides to one bedroom door, spins and it’s five paces to the other, there’s no space, no space. He takes short steps around Pinto to Baby, shorter steps back around the desk to come to stop next to Dorothy.

“How could you let him die?” It’s an accusation.

“I never suspected he meant to do what he did,” she answers. “But Dean,” and that deep musicality informs her voice as she straightens, head and shoulders lifting, to look with rapt intensity at Dean, “he died the glorious death. He’s allowed the movement to grow. His death gives new meaning to Athena, who will be born again. We didn’t win this battle. We won’t win the next one.

“But this is the long struggle. Some of us will be privileged to offer our lives as the stepping stones on which it builds. As we are killed, so the people will come to understand the necessity of the revolution. So the government will divide, will disagree on the methods used to humble us. Even now there is dissent on Athena’s murder.

“Already we force them into crisis. They have declared martial law! No gatherings over three souls in a private dwelling, no movement at all without escort in public. You can be shot in the street, without cause, just for exercising your right to stroll with your children on a fine summer’s day.

“And as each crisis casts Central into disorder, as each crisis disrupts the corruption of their bureaucracy further, so we prepare the ground for Jehane. Until the day he can come and sweep all before him. This is just the first step.”

Sarah stares at her sister. Pinto does as well, both enthralled with her impassioned sermon. But Sam and Dean smile. Sam sadly and Dean’s touched with irony, both showing signs of bitterness still. Sam, catching Dean’s eye, shakes his head at the futility of being angry with Dorothy.

“I’ve got something for you,” Dean says instead of everything else he might’ve. “Bobby’s last gift.” He puts the data crystal on the desk.

Dorothy regards it and him for a moment, nods and returns to her task, sorting through the small accumulation of items in her desk. At the terminal, Baby sings out.

“What’ve you found?” Dean crosses the two steps to stand by her. Sam, Pinto and Sarah disappear into the bedrooms to pack.

Schedules scroll up on the screen:

**outbound ships, canceled, canceled, security clearance only, canceled.**

Protests have been logged by captains and company managers.

“There’s got t’be underground traffic,” Dean mutters. “Or better yet, see if you can find some dog-tagger that’s desperate for a pilot. Dorothy, what’s the name of that port that borders Richmond district? It’s that really old one, rundown.”

“Isn’t it Rudyard? Why do you ask?”

“Because we’re picking up Cas on the way. Look at what’s routing through Rudyard, Baby.”

Baby finds him seven notices on an unranked channel. Shunting her to one side, Dean sits in the chair. The first three don’t even respond to his call. On the fourth he gets voice clearance only. A thick male voice greets him, so obviously filled to the ears on ambergloss that he cuts the connection. The fifth, hailing his call with a spirited, “ _Raccoon_ , I’ve got your frequency,” is cautious but interested. But when, after a period of circumspect negotiation, it transpired that the _Raccoon_ shuttle is not at Rudyard at all but at the farthest west port on the coast, more than thirty hours away, Dean excuses himself. Six doesn’t respond. Seven quickly establishes it wants no tattoo near its controls.

He goes back to the first: no response. Second.

“Frequency acknowledged,” says a soft, high voice, almost drowned in static. “Voice clearance only. We’re looking for a pilot.”

“Voice clearance only,” Dean acknowledges. “I have a pilot in exchange for transportation out of system. My name’s Winchester. What ship is this?”

Static arcs and spits behind the blank screen. For a long moment Dean fears the connection has been cut.

“Dean Winchester?” The voice almost fades into nothing.

“I’m coming on visual,” Dean informs them and punches in the codes. An instant later the screen blossoms into life. “Alex!”

“Oh, Dean!” Her delicate face is drawn into the thinness of exhaustion and fear. “Do you really have a pilot? We’re desperate. We came into system on a run almost a month ago and Pierce went on a binge and almost killed us going out, so Captain Creaser threw him off, but we couldn’t risk looking for a pilot through official channels so Jody and I came down on the shuttle days and days ago but we still haven’t found…” She breaks off. Even in her rush of words, her voice never lifts above a whisper. “Do you really have a pilot?”

“Yes. Are you at Rudyard?”

“It’s a terrible place.” Her eyes glance to either side like she fears observation. “But Jody said they’d never search here. But I’m afraid. There’s riots all over down here—it’s all tattoo districts.” Her voice falters and gives out.

“Why did Jody bring you down? Aren’t you safer up on the ship?”

Lips tremble. “We thought. I thought. Maybe one of my old friends? But I called, just one and now…” Emotions fill her face in a dizzying display. “Now I’m afraid they’re looking for us. We have to get out fast.”

“Where’s Jody?”

“Out looking. How can we reach you? I don’t know how to tell you to get here.”

Dean sooths her and gives Alex a code for Jody to use when she’s back on the shuttle. At her desk Dorothy finally decides what to keep and what to dispose of.

“Sarah,” she calls. Her sister appears with two duffel bags. “We have to wipe off every surface that might take prints and incinerate any leftover items.” She sets down the bags and goes into the washing cubicle.

“Dorothy,” Dean says. “I’ve got us a ship. Now how do we get to Rudyard?”

“That’s good.” Dean watches as Dorothy copies the data crystal into Baby’s memory, then as she moves to the doorway of the washing cubicle where she collects several damp, soapy cloths from her sister and, handing one to Dean, returns to wipe her desk. “Three streets from here there’s a Security vehicle with four troopers whose allegiance is to Jehane.”

“Can we really trust them not to turn us over to Central?”

Her dark eyes lift and a brief smile marks her face. “I have an instinct for Jehanists. They’ll deliver you to your ship.”

“I wonder why I trust you so much,” he replies. She merely looks at him, but she doesn’t answer. “They’ll catch you eventually,” Dean tells her sadly. “Someday the government’s going to kill you.”

“Of course,” answers Athena and she goes back to her washing.

They eat, finish their cursory cleaning, wait until a sudden signal gets Sam at the terminal. Grey dissolves into the face of Jody Mills.

“Sam!” Grimness underlies that assured nonchalance. “Are you coming aboard?”

“If you’ll take us.”

“How many?”

“Four and the ’bot.” Dean leans over his brother’s shoulder.

“One’s a pilot?”

“Yes, he is.”

A grin cracked Jody’s face. “So what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” Sam tells her. “Of course, he’s Ridani.”

“A damned tattoo!”

“Jody. He’ll do the job.”

The grin banished by surprise, returns. “Beggars can’t choose. He’s on. What about you two, Dean?”

“We’re fugitives now, but it’s a long story.”

“Come aboard, by all means. Fugitives are welcome on the _Painted Lady_. But get here fast.”

“Just tell me where you are.”

They say goodbye to Dorothy in the apartment. Pinto shakes her hand. Baby wishes her well in her own voice.

“How’ll you live?” Sam asks her.

“I’ll live on the goodwill of the people.” It’s Athena answering, not Dorothy. “I’ll live on the work of those who’ve already sacrificed themselves, or their loved ones. I’ll live on the promise of Jehane.”

Sarah leads them to the Security vehicle. They climb into the back of the truck and the doors cut them off from her.

A young trooper, nervous but exhilarated, talks incessantly about the growing, but still secret, support for Jehane within the Security forces, especially after the execution and subsequent rioting. He regales them at some length with examples of conversion. Finally, he lapses into silence.

They pass through several checkpoints. The truck stops, voices converse, the truck starts again. At one point the truck comes to an abrupt stop. A hail of shooting sounds around them. A sudden blow rocks the entire vehicle. Sam flings himself half across Pinto to prevent him from falling. Dean’s done the same with Baby. The trooper fingers his gun and directs it at the back doors. From the cab, a voice calls back.

“Coming into Rudyard. It’s wild as pitch out here.” The truck lurches forward, shouts are exchanged. Some barrier seems to be passed and they drive on smoothly. Dean pushes away from Baby and goes forward to call into the cab.

“Eighteen-sixty-five,” he directs them.

An interminable fifteen minutes pass. But at last the truck slows and stops and the engine cuts off with a last cough.

“Cursed whore mother tattoos,” snaps the driver. “They’re just asking to be shot.”

The trooper unlocks the doors, swinging them open. Dean scrambles out first, to see Jody in full mercenary’s rig coming out of the shuttle’s hatch. Dean gives her a lazy wave and Jody lowers her gun.

“Dean!” Her eyes cast back to the truck. Dents pucker the red stripe along one door that identifies it as a Security vehicle. “I thought you were fugitives.”

“They’re Jehanists.” Sam hops out of the truck.

“So they say. Let’s board and get clear. Where’s your pilot—” Her face freezes in astonishment. “Damn my eyes. It’s Alastair’s tame monkey. Grown up.”

Pinto stops. “Go fly your own tupping ship—”

Dean grabs his arm and squeezes it hard. “Jody, this is Pinto.”

“I know you,” says Pinto , still staring at Jody. “You were at the Mughal banquet with the blond—”

“A friend of yours is on that shuttle.” Jody’s voice slices through whatever he was going to say. “So move it up.”

Recognition floods Pinto’s face. “Annie,” he says in a breath, “she disappeared.” He pulls away from Dean and jogs toward the shuttle. Sam and Baby follow him.

Dean turns back toward the truck.

“Dean.” Jody’s voice cuts hard and urgent through the air. “Move it man.”

“There’s just one thing, Jody. I have to find Cas. He works in Richmond.”

“What? Old blue-hair?”

“I’m sorry. If you have to leave me, do it. But I can’t go without him.”

Jody sighs and her mouth turns down. “All right, Winchester. I’ll give you two hours. But these pretty soldiers stay with me until you get back.”

“But—”

Jody cuts off the driver’s protest with one motion of her gun. “You’ll stay with me. Round up your boys and give me your guns. How’d you expect to find him?”

Dean, divesting the four troopers of their guns, turns to the driver. “Where’s Richmond E Depot from here?”

“Less than half a kilometer. Straight down Alda Avenue.”

“Then I can find him. Two hours, Jody. Look after Sam for me, he’s going to be pissed.” Dean turns back to the driver. “I’ll return this then,” he tells him, slipping a hand-size stunner into his boot. He sets out at a ground-eating lope.

Most of the loading berths sit empty. A Security truck roars by and he dodges just in time under the confines of a raised platform. And, looking up, realizes it’s a rail shoot that connects with the cargo tracks. He follows it. Branches to the right where it meets the main tracks and jogs down them. A warehouse looms on his left. The tracks rise, arcing up into a bridge. He crouches at the slope. Off to the left he sees a gate, crowded with troops inside and a fluid mass of people outside.

Surely that must be Alda Avenue. He drops off the height of rail and runs along the side of the decrepit warehouse towards the gate. Broken concrete, cracked and jagged, polluted with shoots of green erupting up through it, snag at his feet, but he neither loses his balance or breaks his stride.

Old warehouses, long deserted by their shattered windows and half-slung doors, cover his approach to within twenty-five yards of the gate. The crowd is a steady undercurrent of noise to the louder sounds of an altercation at the gate. A woman’s voice screams words at the phalanx of troopers stationed behind the broad entry gates. A low vehicle pushes forward, nosing the metal mesh until a single shot shatters through the sound of the engine and the vehicle backs up abruptly. People yell and shout and dash out of its retreating path.

But there’s an exit gate, a smaller one-way set of bars and barriers. About six troopers watch it, but their attention is mostly focused on the entrance.

Honking and shouts accompany the slow advance of a Security vehicle. The crowd throws itself on it, battering at the metal sides, shattering windows. Troopers open the gates, charging through to aid the vehicle. Any number of civilians press into the port. Dean strolls across the median strip, up to the exit gate.

“Excuse me,” he says to the trooper who stands blocking the first section of the gate. “But I need to get out.”

The trooper stares at him, but is distracted by the sudden commands coming from the entry gate, where civilians are pouring around the Security vehicle and through the gate. Dean’s out before he gets any reply.

He has to shove through the crowd, but no-one hinders him because he’s moving in the opposite direction. At last he clears the worst congestion and finds the avenue. The traffic is definitely against him, but all on foot. At the gate he’d seen untattooed people. Now as he walks down the broad avenue as quickly as he can without running, he sees fewer and fewer unmarked faces.

These people are headed away from the direction Dean’s going in. Some at a run. A volley of shots, faint and snapping, echo out along the avenue until the swelling noise of human agitation covers them. A cluster of youths smashes a shop window with rocks. One at their fringe grabs at Dean. He brushes him aside, moving on. Glances back once, but they’ve scattered into the store, looting.

The press of crowd increases against him, pulling him one way, pushing him another, but he fights forward, shoulders hunched, like against the winds of Kansas. He comes out into the plaza fronting Richmond E Depot. And sees what the crowd’s fleeing.

Tumult. Turmoil. Perhaps it had once been a riot. The debris of the protest. Clubs, torn clothing, bodies lie still beneath the agitation swirling over it. Someone hits Dean, full collision and he’s knocked off his feet. He rolls and comes up in a crouch but no-one’s stopping. Another body brushes roughly past. Screams, shouts, uproar. The crack of command. Five precise shots.

A gap opens and he can see the depot. Emerging out of it, in an exact line, the stark white uniforms of the Immortals. They advance step by commanded step. The crowd roils away from them, recoiling back. Shots pepper into the swarm. Those who reach the line of the Immortals are dispatched with ease with a flash of slim, metal clubs that seem choreographed in ruthless efficiency. The crowd breaks under their advance despite the amazing disparity in numbers.

Dean swears under his breath, retreating with the crowd until he can separate off and pushing along the edge of the plaza, ducks into a side street. It’ll be hard enough to retrace his way to the clinic and with this…

Distant commands: “Break line and pursue in order.” Dean runs takes one side street and another, coming out on the edge of a tiny withering park hardly larger than Dorothy’s apartment. He pauses to catch his breath and his bearings.

A rush of running and yelling, followed by a flurry of shots. He throws himself behind a bench. A group of Ridanis run past. One staggers, blood seeping from his abdomen and falls. Six of the others stop, grab him and pull. But four Immortals, practically sprinting in step, surround them and with a supreme economy of effort beat them until there’s no motion left. They turn to face the bench. Dean stands up.

Two men. Two women. They study Dean with dispassionate eyes. Dean has a vivid vision of Jody in such a uniform. He grins. Hops the bench casually, raising one hand and with the other tips the stunner out of his boot and onto the ground. He sits on the high back of the bench, feet on the seat and folds his arms in front of him.

“Even though you aren’t a tattoo,” the woman with the bars of highest rank speaks, “why shouldn’t we shoot you?”

“Because,” Dean answers all cocky, “I’m going to meet my lover.”

Two of them laugh.

“Say it’s true,” the officer continues speaking with him. “Why should we let you meet this lover, tattooed or not?”

Dean stands up and jumps lightly to the ground. “Because I challenge anyone of you, no weapons, to single combat. If I win, you’ll let me go.”

The same two laugh.

“If you lose?” asks the officer.

“Your choice,”

“All right.” The officer nods at one of the men. “Make it quick.”

He divests himself of weapons, puts them in the keeping of his comrades. They back up to give him room. Dean steps forward. More dirt than grass under his feet. He tests it under his boots, getting a feel for traction.

The Immortal lunges. Dean sidesteps, catching him with a clip to the back of the head before he can pull up and turn, Dean kicks the back of one of his knees. But as his balance breaks backward, he falls into it, rolls and pushes up onto his hands, booted feet thrust into Dean’s abdomen.

Dean doubles over, gasping, but the Immortal lands crouched on one knee. They both spin up to their feet and away. A dull ache spreads out along the muscles of Dean’s belly. The Immortal rubs his head and smiles.

Now he circles in. He’s lithe, strong and straight from his training. He shifts closer, whirling, and attacks. Dean’s dodge almost clears the attack but his fist slams into Dean’s shoulder. He spins with the blow to lessen its impact, closing in with an elbow to the Immortals face. He slugs Dean, straight in the chest. Staggering back, Dean barely blocks his next blow with a forearm, deflecting a kick with a sweep of one leg. The Immortal’s hand, ringed with something metal, skims Dean’s cheek and tears the skin.

Dean drops but only into his deepest stance and slams the Immortal’s open belly with a clean reverse punch. He falls like a stone into a heap on the ground. Dean leaps backward, finds the bench and clears it so the high back stands between him and the remaining Immortals. Pain throbs through his abdomen, chest and shoulder. Stings with the whip of cold wind on his cheek. Liquid swells and trails down Dean’s face.

“We keep our word,” the officer tells him. “You have until he can walk again.”

Dean takes ten steps back, turns and sprints. No shots follow him. He aches with each pounding step. Blood trickles down his neck. Each pulse shots through his chest. He runs all the way to the clinic. Not even tattoos bothered him and he sees no more Immortals.

At the steps leading up into the clinic, he has to stop. Not just because he’s gasping for air and fighting the spreading pulse of pain. There are wounded. His first glance stops on a child, chest ripped open as if by a rending knife.

He hears weeping. A man moans, clutching an arm to his body, he shifts and bone shows sticking through his flesh. Dean stumbles up the steps, trying to avoid all the bodies cast there like so much debris. A tattooed woman in a medical jacket walks amongst them, clipping tags about their necks. As Dean reaches the clinic door, two clinic workers emerge and designate the next patients to go in.

“Be you have to wait your turn,” one tells him, laying a restraining hand on his bruised shoulder.

He winces. “I’m not here for injuries. I’m here to see min Seraphim.”

A look passes between the two workers. One nods. “He be in ward B.”

Dean knows where it is. It’s the same common room where he’d gone so long ago when Dorothy had been shot.

Inside the clinic, hush prevails, a low murmur of talk. Injured Ridanis crowd the seats, sitting with the same patience he’s seen in Paisley. Not expecting anything more, in orderly lines in the halls. A worker helps a man limp out of ward B and Dean slips inside, the broad door sighing shut behind him.

Seats, benches, floor, all are crowded with bleeding, torn, wounded Ridanis, a sea of patterns that have, like a common thread running between them, the red markings of blood.

Castiel’s bent over a boy, hands probing with insistent gentleness at one leg. The boy cries out and Castiel, with a skill Dean can only marvel at, soothes his crying while ripping off the trouser to see the wound better.

His hair stands in wild disarray. Blood stains one cheek, dried there likely from hours ago. His medical jacket, once white, now mottled with the reds and browns of old and fresh blood. Strain pulls at the delicate lines of his face. He looks on the edge of breaking down from exhaustion. Dean thinks he’s never seen Cas as handsome as he is now.

Ridani eyes rise to scrutinize him. Silence unfurls along the room until at last the boy, sensing some emotion outside his pain, shifts his head to look at Dean. Castiel looks up at the boy’s face and with a slow turn of his head, follows the boy’s line of sight.

For an instant, as long as a window, they stare at each other, his blue eyes fixing on Dean’s green.

He stands.

“Dean,” he speaks “Help me carry this young fellow into the back room. I have to stitch up his leg.”

Dean complies. He watches in silence as Cas works, as efficient as the Immortals. The boy cries, but he can limp out of the room, clean and sewn-up, when Cas is finished.

“Castiel,” Dean starts. Cas has his back to him washing his hands.

“Why are you here?” he asks over the rush of water. “It’s incredibly stupid of you, Dean.” With a hard wrench he shuts off the taps and turns to glare at him.

“We have to leave Arcadia.”

“What? Right now? Do you suggest I simply abandon my patients in all their blood?”

“Castiel!” Dean steps toward him. He backs away. “Cas, Bobby’s dead.” His expression doesn’t change. He seems not to have heard him. “Central murdered him. They said he was Athena.”

Cas glances down at his bloody jacket. “I heard Athena was dead. I thought it was Dorothy.”

“Don’t you care?” he cries. “It’s Bobby!”

He laughs, “I’ll believe he’s dead when I put these hands on his cold corpse. Maybe not even then.”

“How dare you!” Dean yells. “How dare you say that!” He throws himself at Cas, furious with grief but Cas dodges, avoiding Dean’s blow.

“Why don’t you go away. I’ve work to do.” His hands grip the examining table like he’ll fall if he lets it go.

“I’m leaving, Cas.” Dean’s voice falls. “Don’t you understand that? I may never come back.”

“You’re better off without me, Dean. I’ve only brought you trouble. I’ll only bring you more.”

“Cas.” The barest whisper. “Don’t make me leave without you.”

He laughs, short and hard and lets go of the table. “What difference would it make whether I go with you or not?” But his eyes ask something else.

Dean bows his head. He can’t meet his eyes. The floor is a much safer place to look. “I left Campbell House,” he addresses the floor. “I left Pamela’s Academy. Dorothy’s in hiding. And Bobby—” he stops, voice catching on his name.

Castiel turns his back to him, picks up his examining kit, fastens his stethoscope about his neck. “And I’m all that’s left.” He makes it sound like an insult.

“Cas. That’s not how I meant it.” Dean moves around the table. “Come with me.” Dean walks to him, lifts his hand.

“Don’t touch me,” Cas bites the words out.

While Dean’s still staring, he walks carefully around him and leaves the private room.

He can’t move. The examining table, thin paper sheet covering its cold surface, metal smoothed corners, holds his vision. There Cas had gripped with such force. With one hand, fingers tentative Dean touches that place. It’s cool. Cas’ left nothing of himself there. Dean swallows. There’s moisture on his cheek, but when he lifts a hand to touch it, it’s just blood. Here and there his body aches, but it’s like an old sorrow, dulling into oblivion.

After all, he has to get back to the shuttle. His feet move like someone else is willing them to do so. The door swings open. It takes an eternity to get from the private room to ward B’s exit. All the Ridanis stare at his deliberate progress. He arrives at the door at last. Best just to leave. But he has to look one last time.

He turns. Castiel has knelt before an elderly woman. She has deep gashes all along one side of her body. He examines them graceful in his competence, painstakingly absorbed.

Paisley’s story comes unbidden to his mind. Perhaps some people never can find their true home. Like the Ridanis, lost far down the way. Or never recognize it for what it is until they’ve lost it. To lose Bobby was a thousand times harder than leaving and losing Campbell House. But although Dean’s lost Bobby to irrevocable death, he’d at least known what Bobby was to him. This time the recognition’s indeed come too late.

In front of all these eyes, tears well up as Dean looks at him and a single tear runs down his cheek.

Cas’ head turns. He stares at Dean, like he’s a revelation. Unfastening his stethoscope, he lays it on the lap of the elderly woman and stands up.

“Forgive me,” he tells the room at large as he unbuttons his medical jacket. “But I love him.” The jacket slips to a crumpled heap on the floor.

The elderly woman stands. The rest, those who can, stand one by one and when they’re all on their feet they bow to him, a brief, respectful salute and avert their eyes.

He walks across the room to Dean placing his hands on either side of Dean’s face. “Dean,” he’s looking up at him. “I love you,” he says, wondering, like he’s just this instant realized it’s true.

He smiles, the brilliant, languorous, suggestive smile Dean saw the first time Cas smiled at him. “Of course you do,” he murmurs and their lips touch, the briefest brush.

“Mother’s Breasts, Dean,” he says in an undertone of suppressed hysteria, “let’s get out of here before I have to haul you into the back room.” He lets go of him like Dean’s scorching him.

Castiel leads them out a back way, pausing long enough in an empty storeroom to take two clean medical jackets from a shelf. He hands one to Dean, putting the other on himself and they leave the clinic.

Richmond’s deserted. Silent, empty, seemingly uninhabited. No-one walks the streets. Once, in the distance, they hear a shouted command, but that’s all. The Immortals, with terrible efficiency, have obliterated the riot.

Side streets lead them to the plaza fronting E Depot. It’s so utterly changed from the scene Dean fought through he can’t help but feel he’s somehow been dislocated in time, like he’s gone through, or is still in, a window.

Thin streams of plastic fiber flutter over the ground. The litter of violence lay strewn across the plaza, clothing, signs, abandoned weapons. There’s no bodies. The quiet lying over them is ominous in its intensity.

“Have they killed everyone?” Dean whispers. “Damn, they work fast.”

Castiel’s head lifts, like he’s caught a scent and is trying to trace its source. He moves forward abruptly and Dean half-trips over a ruined moped in his haste to follow him. He stops beside a pile of debris, kneels and uncovers the body of a Ridani woman. Shutting her eyes, he lays a hand on the side of her face. Dean stops behind him. The woman’s been shot at least four times, once in the neck, the rest in the chest. A slow bubble of blood rises out of her partly open mouth.

At last Castiel removes his hand and, rising, steps over the body and walks on.

“She’s still alive,” Dean speaks quietly.

He pauses. “She’ll be dead within the hour, Dean.” He still hesitates. “And she can’t feel anything.”

Dean lifts his eyes from the body to look first at Castiel and then at the deserted square. “We’re going to be seeing a lot of this, aren’t we?”

“Ah, Dean,” he murmurs. “You’re no longer what you were when I first met you.”

“No, I don’t suppose I am. Let’s go.”

At the gate into Rudyard the mob has vanished and the troops stand vigilant but relaxed. To get them inside, Castiel uses the simple expedient method of presenting his med-tech’s identification and informs the guard on the other side of the gate there’s wounded troopers he and his assistant have been called to attend. Once inside, Dean guides them to berth 1865.

“Damn my eyes.” Jody swings out of the cab where she’s efficiently trussed and tied the troopers. “You found him. What happened to your hair, Angel?”

“A minor cosmetic change,” Cas answers. “I’ll let the color grow back.”

In the shuttle, the engines are already going. Pinto’s strapped in front counting down the checklist and his instruments. Alex has a hand on his shoulder. When she sees Dean, she steps back and straps herself in beside Pinto, at comm. Baby sings a relieved greeting, but the chair restraints prevent her from going to Dean. Sam looks at him with wounded eyes and Dean knows there’ll be a reckoning there, but later, when they’ve the time. Behind them Jody closes the hatch. The comm, tuned in to some underground frequency, sounds in the quiet left by the dampening engine noises.

“Athena is not one man, not one woman.” It’s Dorothy’s voice, disguised so she sounds older, but still recognizably her voice. Dean straps himself in next to Cas. The shuttle shudders and coasts forward, taxiing to the strip. “Athena is the voice of the people. Athena cannot be murdered by the oppressors.” Jody straps in across from Dean. Out of the window, buildings and berths clear into the length of runway. “Athena will never die. Athena will always be resurrected. Such is our power.”

Pinto reaches out across Alex and flips off the comm channel.

In its absence, Alex says, “What are you going to do?”

Silence first, but for the muffled rumble of engine through the hull.

“I don’t see we have any choice,” Dean answers finally. “We’ll join Jehane.”

“Oh,” says Alex. “After all,” she finishes as Pinto responds to the go-ahead over comm and the engines arc in volume, “if Central’s hunting you, he’s one person who’ll welcome you and protect you.” She glances briefly at Jody as she says it, but Jody’s busy glaring at the screen in her lap and doesn’t notice the comment.

Beside Dean, Cas has fallen asleep, head tucked against Dean’s shoulder, one hand resting on his thigh. Dean kisses his hair softly. “His heir will take his place,” he murmurs. “It’s inevitable.”

The engines scream and shove and they’re pressed back into their seats by the thrust of takeoff. The shuttle banks sharply to the left, lifts, levels out somewhat and begins the long ascent toward space. Dean, gazing out the window, watches Arcadia dissolve from detail into the indistinct clarity of distance. All that blue, all water. The kind of beauty that never leaves you.

“Goodbye, Master Smith,” Sam says softly for the both of them. Baby sings.

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion_  
_Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion_  
_I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high_  
_Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man_  
_Though my mind could think I still was a mad man_  
_I hear the voices when I'm dreamin'_

The shuttle continues to climb, a steady curve lengthening into the infinite expanse of sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Carry on Wayward Son** by _Kansas_.
> 
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> Part 2 **Unto The Breach** is now complete.  
>  Part 3 **Home Is Where The Heart Is** posts Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.


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